Night Film

19

“It’s the next driveway,” said Nora, squinting at the phone.

The drive to Livingston Manor was an hour and a half of snaking backcountry roads. It was already getting dark, the sky fading to a bruised blue. There were no street signs along Benton Hollow Road, no house numbers, no streetlights, not even any lines — just my car’s faded headlights, which didn’t so much push back the advancing dark as nervously rummage through it. To our left was a wall of solid shrubbery, barbed and impenetrable; to our right, vast black land stretched out, rumpled pastures and faded farmhouses, a lone porch light punctuating the night.

“This is it,” whispered Nora excitedly, pointing at an opening in the shrubs.

There was a metal mailbox, but no number and no name.

I made the turn.

It was a constricted gravel drive straight uphill through dense foliage, an opening barely wide enough for a man, much less a car. The incline grew steeper, so I had to floor it, the entire car shimmying uncontrollably like the space shuttle trying to break the sound barrier. Spindly branches slapped the windshield.

After about a minute, we inched over the crest of the hill.

Instantly, I hit the brakes.

Far in front of us, across a scruffy lawn, wedged back between tall trees, sat a tiny wooden house so decrepit it rendered us mute.

The white paint was cracked and flaking. Shingles were missing from the roof, exposing a raw black hole, windows along the attic floor punched out and charred black. Strewn across the yard among the dead leaves and a large fallen tree were a child’s toys — a wagon, a tricycle, and, farther off, along the edge of the yard where it was dark, an old plastic kiddie pool looking like a popped blister.

There was something so inherently menacing about the house as it loomed there, poised in the shadows, I automatically turned off the engine and headlights. A lone lit bulb by the front door illuminated a porch swing half on the ground and an old air conditioner. Another light was on in one of the back rooms — a tiny rectangular window lit with mint-green curtains pulled tightly closed.

It occurred to me we had no context whatsoever for this man—Morgan Devold. We were following the tip of a total stranger, a Briarwood nurse — who, recalling the way she’d thrown herself in front of the car, hadn’t appeared exactly rational.

Parked beside the house in front of a wooden shed were a pickup truck and an old gray Buick, a plastic tarp hanging out of the trunk.

“Now what?” Nora said nervously, biting her thumbnail.

“Let’s go over the plan,” I said.

“Plan?” Hopper said with a laugh, leaning forward between us. “It’s simple. We talk to Morgan Devold and find out what he knows. Let’s go.”

Before I could say a word, he’d climbed out, slammed the door, and was making his way across the yard. His gray wool coat caught the wind, flapping out behind him, and with his head down, his walk deliberate as he headed straight for the house, he resembled some kind of moody comic-book character about to unleash brutal vengeance on the inhabitants.

“He’s certainly come back from the dead,” I muttered. “What’d you put in his coffee?”

Nora didn’t answer — she was too busy fumbling for the door handle like an eager kid sister who didn’t want to be left behind. Within seconds she scrambled out, dashing right after him.

I held back, waiting. Let them be the scouts—the lowly privates who checked for land mines before the general arrived.

Their footsteps were the only sounds — soft crunches through the leaves and grass strewn with sticks. Maybe it was the peeling paint, giving the house scaly skin, but the place looked reptilian and alive, poised beyond the trees, waiting — that lone lit window like an eye watching us.

Somewhere far away, a dog barked.

Hopper was already at the front porch, so I climbed out of the car. He stepped around the air conditioner, pulled open the screen, and knocked on the door.

There was no answer.

He knocked again, waiting, a blast of wind sending a cluster of leaves across the lawn.

Still no answer. He let the screen bang closed and jumped down into the flower bed spiked with dead stalks and a tangled garden hose. Shading his eyes, he peered in one of the windows.

“Someone’s home,” he whispered. “There’s a TV on in the kitchen.”

“What are they watching?” I asked quietly, striding over the giant fallen tree trunk and then, past Nora, inspecting something lying facedown in the grass. It was an old teddy bear.

“Why?” whispered Hopper, glancing back at me.

“We’ll be able to tell what type of people we’re dealing with. If it’s hardcore Japanese anime, we’ve got problems. But if it’s a Barbara Walters special—”

“It looks like a rerun of The Price Is Right.”

“That’s even worse.”

Hopper stepped gingerly back up onto the porch, this time noticing a dirt-encrusted doorbell. He pressed it twice.

Suddenly there was the jumble of locks turning, a chain sliding, and the front door gasped open, revealing a middle-aged blond woman behind the screen. She was wearing baggy gray sweats, a stained blue T-shirt, her peroxide-streaked hair in a ponytail.

“Good evening, ma’am,” Hopper said. “Sorry to disturb you during the dinner hour. But we’re looking for Morgan Devold.”

She surveyed him suspiciously, then craned her neck to look at me.

“What do you all want with Morgan?”

“Just to chat,” Hopper said with a laid-back shrug. “It should only take a few minutes. We’re from Briarwood.”

“He’s not home,” said the woman rudely.

“Any idea when he’ll be back?”

She squinted at him. “You all get off our property or I’m callin’ the cops.”

She was about to slam the door, when a man materialized beside her.

“What’s the matter?”

He had a soft, mild-mannered voice, in startling contrast to the woman, who appeared to be his wife. He was considerably shorter than she, and looked younger — early thirties — stocky, wearing a faded blue flannel button-down tucked neatly into his jeans, the sleeves rolled up. He had brown hair in a crew cut and broad, reddish features that were neither unattractive nor handsome, only ordinary. It was the face of a million other men.

“Are you Morgan Devold?” asked Hopper.

“What’s this about?”

“Briarwood.”

“You all got some nerve showin’ up here,” said the woman.

“Stace. It’s all right.”

“No more communication. You heard the lawyer—”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine—”

“Let me handle it.” He said it with a sharp, raised voice, and suddenly somewhere in a back room, a baby started to cry.

The woman darted out of the doorway, though not before glaring at him.

“Get rid of them,” she said.

Morgan — it appeared this was Morgan — stepped forward with an apologetic smile. As the baby wailed, he said nothing, and the way he stood there, stranded behind the screen door, reminded me of my last visit to the Bronx Zoo with Sam; she’d pointed out with great concern a chimpanzee staring dolefully out at us from behind the glass — such profound sadness, such resignation.

“You guys are from Briarwood?” he asked uncertainly.

“Not exactly,” said Hopper.

“Then what’s this really about?”

Hopper stared at him for a second before answering. “Ashley.”

It was surprising, the knowing way he said her name. In fact, it was ingenious—implying Ashley was some incredible experience both of them had had, so memorable, any mention of a last name was unnecessary. She was a magnificent hidden island, a secret house on a rocky cliff, visited by only a privileged few. If it was a deliberate trap on Hopper’s part, it worked, because instantly a look of recognition appeared on the man’s face.

Glancing furtively over his shoulder — where his wife had just disappeared to tend to the baby — he turned back to us. With a guilty smile, he extended his index finger and, careful not to make any noise, pushed it against the screen, quietly opening the door.

“Out here,” he whispered.