Nightshade

CHAPTER 27

FINGERS OF PANIC reached out of the darkness toward Matt, but before they could find a hold on the fringes of his mind, he managed to pull away, to force himself to ignore the suffocating blackness that had not only blinded him, but threatened to drive him into a terror so deep he knew he might never escape. The panic had become a living thing — he could feel its presence circling him in the darkness, relentlessly stalking him as it waited for a moment of weakness in which it would be able to slip through the barriers he’d put up.

Escape.

He had to find some way to escape, to get to the trapdoor in the ceiling. Kelly Conroe, with one of her arms broken and her body so badly bruised that she couldn’t bear the pain, had retreated back into the sanctuary of unconsciousness. Matt was certain that if he didn’t find a way to get her out, she would die.

Like his grandmother had died.

Twice, he’d made a circuit of the perimeter of the chamber, feeling his way along the wall like a rat sniffing its way through a sewer. Twice, he’d come to his grandmother’s corpse. Twice, he’d felt his fingers sink into her cold flesh. The first time, his belly had contracted in a spasm of retching, and his mouth filled with bile.

“What’s wrong?” Becky had whispered, hearing him coughing and gagging. Though she’d kept her voice so low it was almost inaudible, it seemed to Matt to echo off the walls, resounding so loudly that he was certain his mother would appear at any moment.

“It’s okay,” he whispered back when he trusted himself to speak. “I–I just ran into something, that’s all.”

The second time he touched his grandmother’s rotting flesh, he shuddered silently but managed to control his stomach.

But how much longer could he hold the panic at bay? It grew stronger, loomed larger in the blackness. He could feel it sinking its talons into his mind, but as he shook it off, he lost his orientation. Then every direction seemed the same, and when he once more found a wall, he had no more idea of where he was than he’d had before. “Becky?”

“I’m over here.”

Her voice seemed to be off to the right, but Matt wasn’t certain. “Where?” he asked. “Keep talking. I have to find you.” As Becky continued whispering, he moved toward her voice, reaching out into the darkness. Finally he touched her, and felt her recoil in the blackness. “It’s only me,” he said. “Don’t be scared.”

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“I have an idea,” Matt said. “I don’t know if it will work, but I can’t think of anything else.”

“What is it?”

“We’ll start from one of the corners. You’ll get on my shoulders, and when we get to the trapdoor, you can lift it up.”

“I’ll fall!” Becky protested.

“No, you won’t,” Matt assured her. “I can hold you up, and you can balance yourself by holding on to the ceiling.”

“But what if — ” Becky began, but Matt didn’t let her finish, afraid that if he didn’t assert himself, he might lose what little confidence the darkness hadn’t yet robbed him of.

“We have to try it,” he said. “Come on.” Holding Becky’s hand, he groped his way through the darkness until he came to one of the walls, then edged along it until he was in a corner. He knelt down, crouching low, facing the wall. “Climb up on my shoulders,” he told her. “Put your right foot up first, and lean against the wall. When I tell you, pull your other foot up. Then straighten up, and once you can balance yourself, I’ll stand up. Okay?”

“I–I guess,” Becky stammered.

Matt crouched down, and a moment later felt one of Becky’s feet touch his back. “Higher,” he said. She lifted it up, and he used his hand to guide it onto his shoulder. “Okay, now lean forward, and pull your other foot up.” He felt Becky’s weight bear down on him, and then, just as he thought he might collapse under the pressure on his right shoulder, she quickly lifted her other foot, found his left shoulder, and balanced her weight. “Good,” Matt grunted. “Now, try to stand up. Just do it slowly, and feel your way along.”

“Okay,” she said a few seconds later. “I’m standing up. Now what?”

“Now I’m going to hold onto your ankles. Try to stand up,” Matt told her. Straightening his back, he flexed his knees. For a second he thought it wouldn’t work, but then he was able to straighten up until he was standing upright. “Can you touch the ceiling?”

“Uh-huh,” Becky grunted.

“Okay. I think I know where the trapdoor is, but you’ll have to tell me when you feel it.” He took a step away from the corner of the room, then another. He concentrated on moving toward the center of the room, but in the absence of light, he couldn’t be sure exactly where he was.

After he’d taken four steps, Becky said, “I feel it!”

“Try to lift it!” Matt replied. He straightened up, locking his knees, and she shoved at the door.

It rose just enough for a faint glimmer of gray light to show through a crack, then fell back into its frame.

“What happened?” he gasped.

“I can’t lift it,” Becky moaned. “It’s too heavy!”

“Try again,” Matt said.

Once again Becky struggled to raise the trapdoor, but again its weight defeated her. This time she lost her balance, but as she dropped down, he managed to break her fall by wrapping his arms around her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice choking as she clung to him. “I just couldn’t do it!”

“It’s okay,” he replied, trying to think of another solution. There was only one he could come up with. “You’re going to have to hold me.”

“I can’t!” Becky protested.

“You can,” Matt insisted. “There isn’t any other way.”

They worked their way back to the corner, and this time it was Becky who crouched down in the darkness. Matt took off his shoes, felt in the darkness until his fingers touched her, then gingerly placed his right foot on her shoulder.

“Okay,” he said. “This is going to be the worst part. I’m going to push off with my left foot really hard, and you try to stand up at the same time. As soon as you feel my left foot, grab my ankles. I’ll steady us both. Ready?”

Becky said nothing, but he heard her take a deep breath. Then, as he said “Go!” and lunged upward, he felt her body tense. He surged up the corner, bracing himself against the ninety-degree angle with both hands. Becky trembled beneath him, and for a moment he thought she was going to collapse, but then she steadied herself.

A second later she began turning around. “I don’t know if I can — ”

“Don’t talk,” Matt told her. “Just start working your way out toward the middle.”

Then Becky was moving, though so slowly Matt thought her strength would give out long before they made it to the center of the room and the trapdoor. But after what seemed a long time, but couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds, the fingers of his right hand brushed against the frame of the trapdoor.

“Another couple of steps,” he said. “We’re almost there.” Becky edged forward, and finally Matt felt the door above him. “Okay, make yourself as rigid as you can.” He could feel Becky’s body tense beneath his feet and her hands tighten on his ankles.

“Now,” she whispered, her voice strangling on the tension in her neck.

Matt shoved hard, and as the trapdoor lifted, he thrust one arm through just as he heard Becky yelp with pain, then collapse beneath him. For a moment he hung there, dangling, then managed to force his other arm through the crack as well. “I’ve got it!” he said, hauling himself up. He swung his body and lifted the trapdoor just enough with his shoulder to jam his knee through. A second later he was slithering through the gap between the basement floor and edge of the trapdoor. As he pulled his left leg free, the door dropped into place and he heard Becky’s muffled voice calling out to him. Grasping the handle of the door, he pulled it all the way up so the hole in the root cellar’s ceiling was fully opened. He groped for the string that would turn on the light above the trapdoor, found it, and pulled. Brilliant yellow light flooded the basement, and Matt blinked in its glare.

“Get me out,” Becky pleaded. She was huddled on the floor, staring up at him, squinting against the bright light.

“What happened?” Matt asked.

“I twisted my ankle. I don’t think I can stand on it.”

Matt scanned the basement and spotted the aluminum extension ladder lying on the floor a few feet away. He pulled it over to the trapdoor, lifted it up and lowered one end into the chamber below. When it rested on the ground, Becky grabbed onto it and began pulling herself up. Then she was on her feet, working her way up the ladder, hanging from each rung as she pulled her good leg up, transferred her weight to it, and reached for the next rung. She was almost at the top, reaching for Matt’s extended hand, when her eyes widened and she tried to speak.

Too late.

Matt had just sensed the presence behind him when something crashed against his head. Grunting, he let go of Becky’s hand and slumped to the floor.

Becky screamed as she dropped back into the root cellar. As the terrifying figure of Joan Hapgood began climbing down the ladder, clutching the shovel with which she’d just struck Matt, Becky tried to scuttle away into the shadows in the corner. But it was too late — a moment later Joan was looming over her, the shovel raised high. Becky held up her hands as the shovel arced downward, its blade slashing at her face. Clutching at the tear in her cheek, Becky tried to roll away from the shovel, but it rose and fell over and over again, its blade ripping through her flesh, smashing at her skull until she lay huddled against the wall, unmoving, her face streaming with blood.

Reaching down, Cynthia rolled Becky’s body over, ripping the pocket off Becky’s blouse as she did. As the pool of blood around Becky spread, Cynthia turned to peer at the body of her mother. “Look what Joan did,” she whispered. “It wasn’t my fault, Mama. Joan did it… Joan did it all… ”

Turning away from the bodies on the floor of the root cellar, Cynthia climbed the ladder up to the basement.

She blinked in the bright light.

Where Matt had been only a few moments ago, there was now only a smear of blood.

Her son — her perfect son — her beloved son — was gone.

* * *

MATT REELED THROUGH the door at the top of the basement stairs, oblivious to his surroundings, his mind still seared by what he’d seen in the root cellar. Stunned by the blow from the shovel, he’d collapsed on the floor next to the trapdoor, his body convulsing as waves of pain rolled through him. Then a scream cut through the pain, a terrified scream that rose into a howl of agony. Pulling himself up to his hands and knees, he peered down through the trapdoor. What he saw made his stomach heave.

Lying against one wall, her hands cut off so her arms ended in ragged stumps of decaying flesh and mangled bones, was the body of his grandmother, her nightgown stained with congealed blood, her eyes, wide-open, staring up at him.

A few feet to her left lay Kelly Conroe, unconscious, her face covered with bruises, a cut on her lip encrusted with a thick scab.

In the opposite corner, sprawled against the wall, was Becky Adams, blood gushing from deep gashes in her mouth and throat. Her arms and legs twitched spasmodically, and as Matt watched his mother slash at her with the shovel, his throat constricted, turning his own cry into a choking sob that was all but inaudible. Blind to everything but the vision of the carnage below the cellar’s floor, he’d stumbled toward the stairs and started up.

Now he stood numb and trembling in the kitchen, his mind refusing to work, his reason washed away by the flood of horror he’d just witnessed.

Then, through the numbness in his mind, he heard: “Matt? Matt, where are you?”

His mother’s voice.

But not quite his mother’s voice.

His aunt’s voice — the voice he’d so often heard whispering to him in the night.

The voice that should have existed only in his dreams.

Then there were footsteps coming up the basement stairs, and the voice was louder.

He had to get away! He had to escape!

Matt stumbled across the kitchen, through the mud room, and out the back door. Late afternoon had given way to evening, and he froze on the porch for a moment, blinded now by the sudden darkness. Then the crash of the door at the top of the basement stairs galvanized him, and he charged down the steps, taking them two at a time.

The road! If he could get to the road, he would be safe.

He stumbled down the driveway, unable to shake the vision of horror in the basement. It drowned out any other thoughts, paralyzing his ability to reason, so that when he heard the roar of an automobile engine behind him, the sound only spurred him on, sent him pounding harder down the driveway toward the gates. He was almost there, almost within reach of his goal, when the car struck him.

He went down hard, his shoulder and then his head slamming against the driveway, knocking him unconscious.

The car screeched to a stop, and then a figure was crouched over him.

“My baby,” Cynthia whispered. “My poor baby.” She gently lifted Matt’s head and cradled it against her breast, her finger stroking his cheek as she gazed down into his face. “But it’s all right, my darling. We’ll be together now.” Her lips pressed close to his ear. “Now we’ll always be together.”

Gently easing Matt’s head back onto the driveway, Cynthia straightened up. Leaving the car where it was, she walked quickly back up the driveway toward the house, and when she came back, the shovel — the one she’d used to put an end to Becky Adams’s life — was in her hand. Stooping down, she placed the handle in Matt’s right hand, closing his fingers around the polished oak, his fingerprints covering her own. Then she moved his other hand up and down the shovel’s oaken handle, so his fingerprints were everywhere. Satisfied, she let his left arm drop again, then placed a scrap of material in his left hand.

Bloody material, which had been torn from Becky Adams’s blouse.

“I have to leave you now, my darling,” Cynthia whispered. “But not for long. And when I come back, we’ll never be parted again. We’ll be together. We’ll be together forever.”

* * *

JOAN HAPGOOD FELT as if she were waking up from a deep sleep, but as her mind began to clear, her confusion only deepened. What was she doing outside? And why was it dark? The last thing she remembered was —

What?

Her memory seemed to have vanished, but then it began creeping back:

She’d been in Cynthia’s room, getting rid of her things.

Not getting rid of them — destroying them. She turned toward the house, her eyes going to the window of the last room she remembered being in, the room on the second floor where her mother had insisted on putting all of Cynthia’s things. And then —

And then there was nothing! Just a terrible, blank void, as if she’d suddenly fallen into a deep sleep. Except she hadn’t been asleep. She’d been ridding herself of her sister, finally and forever. Ridding herself of Cynthia’s clothes, her pictures, everything!

Then what happened? Her glance shifted from the house to the car. What was she doing out here? And why was the car —

Out of the corner of her eye she saw something on the ground, and turned in that direction.

She saw Matt, lying motionless on the driveway. How — Why —

“Matt!” She screamed his name as she dropped down beside him. On her knees, she reached out and gathered him into her arms, rocking him as she sobbed. What had happened? How had it happened? The shovel fell from his hand, drawing her attention as it dropped to the ground. In the light of the rising full moon, she could see the bloodstains on the blade, but didn’t grasp what they were. Then, as she looked down at herself and saw the blood that stained her own clothes, a strangled scream erupted from her throat.

What had happened? What had Matt done? What had she done?

Help!

She had to get help!

Leaving Matt where he was, she raced toward the house, slamming the back door open so hard its window shattered. Ignoring the shards of glass that sprayed across the mud room floor, she stumbled into the kitchen, found the phone, and fumbled with the buttons, forcing her trembling fingers to press 911. “Help,” she begged when the emergency operator came on the line. “Oh, God, please send someone to help me. It’s my son — oh, God, I think my son is dead… ”

* * *

GERRY AND NANCY Conroe were just finishing their dinner when the police scanner on Gerry’s desk came alive. Ordinarily, neither of the Conroes would have heard it, for they usually ate in the dining room, where Nancy had banned the scanner years ago. “Dinner should be a family event,” she had decreed the one time Gerry brought it into the room. “It’s one of the few times we’re all together, and if you have that thing on, none of us will talk. We might as well stop using the dining room, and eat on TV trays in the den.” Which was exactly what Nancy and Gerry were doing that evening, unable to face the prospect of sitting at the dining room table without Kelly. The TV was on, tuned to the national news, but neither of them could have repeated a word of what the anchorman was saying, any more than they could have said what they’d been eating.

Nor were they talking. Instead, consciously or unconsciously, they were both listening to the police scanner, waiting for it to begin crackling, hoping it would bring them word that their daughter had been found. Thus, when the voice of the dispatcher suddenly erupted from the tinny speaker, both of them froze, their eyes turning toward the small plastic radio on Gerry’s desk.

They listened in silence as what seemed to Nancy to be an unintelligible stream of words spewed from the scanner. But even she understood the import of the last few words:

“Proceed to 1326 Manchester Road. Repeat, one-three-two-six Manchester Road.”

“That’s Bill and Joan’s house,” Nancy said. “What’s — ”

Gerry held up a hand to silence her as they both recognized Dan Pullman’s voice come on the speaker.

“This is Unit One,” Pullman said. “I’m on my way. Unit Two, you copy?”

“Unit Two copies.” Tony Petrocelli’s voice was barely audible, almost lost in a haze of static.

“Meet me there,” Pullman ordered. The radio abruptly fell silent.

“What’s going on?” Nancy asked. “What’s happening?”

Gerry Conroe was on his feet. “They’re sending an ambulance over there. It sounded like someone’s down in the driveway.” He headed toward the front door, and Nancy hurried after him.

“Down?” she echoed uncertainly. “What — ”

“Injured,” Gerry said, his voice grim as he pulled on a light jacket. “Or dead.”

As he pulled open the front door, they heard a siren wailing in the distance and growing steadily louder.

“I’m coming with you,” Nancy said, pulling her jacket from the coat tree next to the front door.

Gerry made no argument, and a moment later they were in his car, the wheels spitting gravel as he shot around the circle and started down their driveway toward Manchester Road. For once, Nancy didn’t tell her husband to slow down.

* * *

PHYLLIS ADAMS’S HEAD came up as she heard the sound of a siren screaming along Prospect Street, growing louder as it approached the corner of Burlington, then rapidly fading away to a lonely wail. “It’s Becky,” she said, reaching for the decanter to refill her empty glass. “I know it’s Becky.”

“You don’t know anything of the sort,” Frank growled, picking up the decanter an instant before his wife’s fingers closed on it.

“What are you doing?” Phyllis demanded.

“Do you really want to be drunk when Becky comes home?”

Phyllis eyed her husband blearily. She was almost sure Becky wasn’t coming home — half an hour ago she’d had a strong feeling that came out of nowhere, and knew that something terrible had happened to her daughter. “She’s dead,” she’d wailed, her eyes tearing. “I know my baby’s dead.” Frank had only glared at her, and she could tell that he thought she was drunk. And maybe she was, but that didn’t mean her intuition wasn’t right.

Now, as the siren faded into the darkness beyond the front window, she stood up, steadying herself against the table next to her chair. “We should go out there,” she said.

“We’re not going anywhere,” her husband retorted. “We’re going to sit here and wait. If Dan Pullman finds anything — or even hears anything — he’ll call us.” His eyed his wife balefully. “And it would help if you were sober when that happens.”

Phyllis seemed about to argue with him, but then turned and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll make some coffee,” she said, seeing no point in mentioning the bottle of cooking sherry she kept behind the coffee can on the next-to-the-top shelf of the pantry.

* * *

DAN PULLMAN PULLED through the gates of Hapgood farm right behind the ambulance. He could see Tony Petrocelli’s squad car stopped halfway to the house, its lights flashing. As he pulled his car off the drive so as not to block the ambulance when it left, he saw Tony squatting next to Matt’s body. Crouched on the other side of Matt, leaning against the Range Rover, was Joan Hapgood.

As the paramedics took over for him, Tony Petrocelli stood up and drew his boss aside. “He’s still alive,” he said. “But I sure don’t get what’s going on.”

“What did Joan tell you?”

Petrocelli shrugged. “She says she can’t remember what happened.”

Pullman’s eyes flicked toward Joan, then returned to his deputy. “Can’t remember? She was driving the car, wasn’t she?”

Petrocelli spread his hands helplessly. “She says she doesn’t know.”

“What the hell does she mean, she doesn’t know?”

Holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the glare of a pair of headlights that had appeared at the foot of the driveway, Pullman shook his head impatiently. “Find out who that is, and make them go away,” he growled. “And make sure nobody else comes in here, okay?” As the deputy moved toward the car that had pulled to a stop just behind the ambulance, Pullman shifted his attention to Joan Hapgood.

“Joan?” He took her arm and gently drew her to her feet, only seeing the blood on her clothes as she stepped into the glare of the ambulance’s headlights. “Are you hurt?”

Joan shook her head but said nothing, her eyes fixed on Matt, who was still lying exactly as he had been when she found him a little while ago.

“I–I don’t think so,” she stammered.

As she finally tore her eyes away from Matt and looked at the police chief, Pullman could see the confusion in her face. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Joan shook her head.

Pullman frowned. Was it that she didn’t know, or didn’t want to tell him? “Would you like me to call Trip Wainwright?” he asked. For a moment he didn’t think she’d heard him, but then she shook her head again.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. Her gaze went back to Matt. “I’ve killed him, haven’t I?” she asked, her voice breaking. “I’ve killed my son.”

Suddenly Gerry Conroe appeared at Pullman’s side. “What the hell is going on around here?” he demanded. “Tony Petrocelli just tried to order me off the — ” His eyes fell on Joan Hapgood’s bloody clothing. “Jesus! He tried to kill you too, didn’t he?”

“We don’t know what happened, Gerry,” Pullman said before Joan could respond. “And I was the one who told Tony to keep you out of here.”

Conroe’s face flushed with anger. “I’ve got every right to be here. My daughter is still — ”

“Not now, Gerry,” Pullman said, deciding he’d had enough. “Stay if you want, but keep out of my way. If you don’t — ”

“We need to get him into the ambulance,” one of the medics called out to him. “Is that okay?”

Pullman moved to Matt and looked down at him. The shovel — no longer in his hands — lay on the driveway at his side, and in his other hand was a scrap of blood-soaked cloth.

“We’ve already taken pictures of everything,” the medic said as Dan crouched down next to the boy.

Reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket, Pullman pulled out one of the Ziploc bags he always carried. Touching only a single corner of the scrap of cloth, he carefully drew it out of Matt’s hand and put it in the bag. As he was sealing the bag he noticed the monogram on the material: FAT.

He recognized it right away, for he had been with Frank Adams the first time his friend ordered a monogram on his shirt. A monogram that had subsequently appeared on every shirt Frank Adams owned, including the ones his daughter had taken to wearing a year ago. “Oh, Jesus,” he whispered, and though his words were barely audible, they caught the attention not only of the medics who were about to transfer Matt to a stretcher, but of Gerry Conroe as well.

“What is it?” Conroe demanded. “What did you find?”

Pullman ignored him, concentrating instead on Matthew Moore. “What did you do?” he asked the unconscious boy. “What did you do to Becky Adams?”

With Tony Petrocelli’s help, the two EMTs lifted Matt onto the stretcher. “Careful,” one of the medics told the deputy as a low moan escaped Matt’s lips. “It looks like his shoulder might be broken.” They eased Matt onto the stretcher as gently as they could, then lifted the stretcher onto the waiting gurney. As one of the medics began strapping Matt down, he groaned again.

“Hold it!” Pullman snapped, stepping to the head of the gurney and looking down into the boy’s face. “Talk to me, Matt!” he said, still clutching the Ziploc bag containing the scrap of material from Frank Adams’s shirt. “Tell me what happened!”

“Take it easy, Chief,” one of the medics said. “He can’t hear you.”

Pullman’s eyes didn’t leave the boy’s face. “Come on, Matt!” Another moan drifted from the boy’s lips, and Pullman thought he saw a twitch. “Talk to me!”

Then Joan appeared next to the stretcher, looming over Matt. “Leave him alone,” she cried. “Just leave him alone!” Her gaze shifted from Dan Pullman to her son. “I’m here, Matt,” she whispered. “I’m here. And I’ll never leave you. I’ll never leave you again.”

As she uttered the last words, Matthew Moore’s eyes snapped open, and a different sound erupted from his throat.

It was not a moan. It was a scream, an anguished scream carrying so much pain that it froze everyone who had gathered around the stretcher.