Nightshade

CHAPTER 6

THOUGH THE MORNING was clear and crisp and the whole world seemed suffused with the golden light that filtered through the fall foliage, Matt’s mood was as dark as when he had awakened an hour ago to the shrill buzzing of the alarm. He’d snaked one hand out from under the quilt — wrapped so tightly around him that it felt like a shroud — silenced the clock, and wondered why he couldn’t just stay in bed.

It was his birthday, wasn’t it? Why couldn’t he just do whatever he wanted to do? Besides, it didn’t feel like he’d slept at all. Then he rolled over, turning his back on the morning light streaming through the window; closing his eyes against it.

It had not worked.

His skin still crawled with the memory of the touch during the night — the touch that had to have been no more than a dream, but that even now he could still feel in his loins. Better to face the day than risk slipping back into the nightmares of sleep.

But he was starting to think he was wrong, that maybe he should have just stayed in bed.

When he’d come downstairs to find his stepfather waiting for him, he knew right away that nothing from last night had yet been forgotten. His dad hadn’t said anything, but Matt could tell he was still pissed off. As they checked over the guns on the big refectory table in the den, Matt waited for the storm to break, but as the minutes had ticked by and the silence held, he finally figured out his dad’s game. He’s gonna wait for me to apologize. Well, why should I? What did I do? It’s not my fault. None of it’s my fault! He thought things would get better when Eric and Pete got there, but as soon as they came in with their fathers, he could tell that Pete was still pissed at him too.

And now, an hour later, the six of them were deep in the woods to the west of the house, and hadn’t had so much as a glimpse of a deer, and it seemed like nobody was speaking to anybody.

“Why don’t we just give it up?” Matt asked, stopping abruptly.

“What’s the matter, Moore?” Pete Arneson said, his voice edged with sarcasm. “You want to quit on this the same way you quit on me?”

Matt glowered at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Pete and Eric Holmes exchanged a glance, silently sharing the moment on the practice field when Matt had purposely let Eric charge through, then Pete’s eyes settled on Matt again. “You know what it means.”

The two boys stood glaring at each other, and their fathers remained silent as well. Then Bill Hapgood spoke. “What’s he talking about, Matt?”

“I don’t — ” Matt began, but Pete didn’t let him finish.

“You’re screwing up! You’re screwing up everything. What the hell’s wrong with you lately?”

“Nothing!” Matt flared. “Why don’t you all just leave me alone, okay?” The words were out of his mouth before he even realized he was going to say them, and now it was too late to snatch them back. He could see the anger burning in Pete’s eyes, and feel Eric glaring at him too. “Who needs any of you?” he shouted. He turned away, pushed past Eric and Pete, Marty Holmes and Paul Arneson, and started down the trail.

“Matt!” his stepfather barked, breaking the tense silence in the aftermath of Matt’s outburst. From force of habit, Matt stopped and turned back. “You don’t talk to your guests that way.”

Matt’s face burned with humiliation at the tone of Bill’s voice but he wasn’t about to back down. “They’re not my guests,” he shot back. “This whole thing was your idea. I didn’t even want to come.”

Bill Hapgood’s jaw tightened. “Be careful, Matt. You’re walking a very thin line. Just because it’s your birthday doesn’t give you the right to talk to your friends or your father — ”

“You’re not my father!” Matt exploded. “I don’t have a father, remember? You’re just the man my mother married!”

“Now just hold on, Matt,” Marty Holmes cut in. “If I were you — ”

“You’re not me,” Matt flared. “None of you are! So why don’t you all just — ”

Pete Arneson grabbed Matt’s arm. “Look!” he whispered excitedly, pointing upward. They were standing on the bank of Granite Creek, a quarter of a mile above the falls for which the town was named. Across the stream a craggy face of stone rose in a steep bluff for nearly forty feet. A seven-point buck gazed down at them from the top of the bluff. “Jeez!” Pete whispered. “Did you ever see one that big before?”

They peered up at the buck, and the enormous animal, feeling their eyes on him, looked back at them for a moment. But as Eric Holmes lifted his rifle to his shoulder, the deer shied away and disappeared.

“It’s not going to be that easy,” Bill Hapgood said as Eric lowered his rifle. “Any buck that’s been around long enough to get that big isn’t going to just stand there and let us shoot him.” The storm between Matt and his friends dying away almost as quickly as it had come up, Bill began issuing orders. “If we’re going to get him, we’ll have to split up. Matt and I will cross the stream and climb the bluff here, and you guys spread out. Marty, you and Eric head downstream toward the falls, while Paul and Pete go the other way.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ll meet back here at ten — that gives us a little less than two hours. If none of us have him by then, we’re not going to get him.” His voice dropped. “And just make sure that if you shoot at something, it’s that buck, not one of us.”

“If he’s still up there at all,” Marty Holmes muttered, warily eyeing the steep face of the bluff and wondering how sure the footing might be.

“He’ll be up there somewhere,” Bill replied. “He wants to come down to the river to drink, so he’ll stay close. See you back here at ten.”

The group split up, and as his stepfather picked his way across the shallow stream and began working his way up the bluff, Matt hesitated.

Maybe he should just go home right now.

But that would only make things worse than they already were. And maybe if they were by themselves for a while, he and his dad could straighten things out. Taking a deep breath, Matt made his way across the stream, then slung his rifle over his shoulder and followed his stepfather to the top of the bluff.

Ten minutes later, as they were working their way along the edge of the bluff searching for the deer’s tracks, a flicker of movement caught Matt’s eye.

The buck was standing in a thicket about fifty yards away, its ears flicking rapidly as it searched for sounds that might indicate danger. But as Matt raised his rifle, the deer vanished into the woods.

“He smells us,” Bill said softly. His eyes still fixed on the spot where the deer had been, he tilted his head to the left. “Circle around that way. We’re upwind of him, so if I stay here, he’ll still have my scent. And you can bet that he’s in there somewhere, watching us. But if you circle around so he can’t smell you, you might get close enough to get a good shot.” When Matt made no move to start closing on the prey, Bill’s voice hardened slightly, leaving no room for argument. “Just because it’s your birthday doesn’t mean you’re entitled to do any damn thing you want. It’s time for you to grow up. And it’s time for you to bag your first trophy. Understand?”

Matt’s face burned. All he’d wanted to do was talk to his dad, to try to straighten things out. But —

But the hell with it!

Without a word he disappeared into the woods.

* * *

A QUARTER OF an hour later Matt was on the other side of the thicket. For the last two minutes he thought he could hear the deer moving restlessly in the underbrush, and now, as he moved slowly toward the sound, the big buck came into view.

It was standing about forty yards away, its head up, its ears pricking as it tried to pick up sounds that might indicate danger.

Matt eased his rifle — a brand-new Browning BAR 30–06 with a Bushnell sight — off his shoulder and flicked the clip and chamber open. Putting one shell in the chamber and four more in the clip, he snapped the clip closed and released the safety. His fingers tightening on the satiny maple of the Browning’s stock, he braced its rubber butt firmly against his shoulder. His right forefinger curled around the trigger as his left hand steadied the semiautomatic rifle.

He squinted, peering through the sight.

The deer’s head appeared in the crosshairs.

Matt hesitated.

It was such a magnificent creature — why should he shoot it?

Then, as he gazed at the buck’s uplifted head, he became aware of a strange scent on the morning air: a scent that jerked him out of the brilliant morning light and plunged him back into the depths of last night, when he had wakened in darkness.

The scent grew stronger, and now he heard the voice whispering to him.

“You know what you have to do, Matthew.”

Darkness began to close around him, until all he could see was the head of the deer.

The deer, and something beyond…

“Do it, Matthew,” the voice whispered. “Do it for me… ”

The darkness deepened.

“No,” Matt whispered.

The shroud of darkness tightened, and now he felt the touch, the same touch he’d felt last night, stroking his arms.

Moving over his hands.

Curling around his fingers.

“Do it,” the voice whispered once more. “Do it…”

A shot sounded.

Then another.

And another.

Matt, lost in the darkness, was utterly unaware that the shots echoing through the morning had come from the weapon in his hands…

* * *

“MATT? HEY, MATT!”

Matt jumped at the sound of Eric Holmes’s voice.

“What’s going on?” Eric asked, approaching and cocking his head as he looked at Matt. “You okay? You look — ”

“I’m fine,” Matt said, the words coming quickly. But he wasn’t fine. He felt strange, almost as if he’d been half asleep and Eric’s voice had jerked him out of a dream. But that didn’t make any sense — he was still standing in the same spot as when he caught sight of the deer a few minutes ago, the Browning still in his hands. And you couldn’t sleep standing up.

Could you?

Of course not! So Eric’s voice must have just caught him by surprise. Except nothing looked quite the way that it had a minute ago. The light filtering through the trees was different, and —

And the sun was higher than it had been.

A lot higher!

“You sure you’re okay?” Eric pressed. “I’ve been looking for you for an hour!”

An hour? What was he talking about? It hadn’t been much more than half an hour since he and his dad had crossed the stream and started up the bluff while Eric and his father headed toward the falls and the Arnesons went farther upstream. So it couldn’t be much later than eight-thirty, maybe quarter to nine. Except when he looked down at his watch he saw that Eric was right — it was almost nine-thirty.

But that was nuts! It couldn’t be that late — it was just a minute or so ago that he’d spotted the deer, and raised his rifle and —

— and what?

There was something playing around the edges of his memory, something he couldn’t quite bring into focus, and now, as he struggled to remember it, it vanished the way the ephemera of the night dissolve in the morning light, erased from the memory as cleanly as if they’d never existed at all.

But it wasn’t night, and he hadn’t been dreaming.

Then what had happened?

Where had the missing time gone?

His thoughts were disrupted by Eric shouting to his father. “I found him, Dad! He’s over here!” Again his eyes fixed on Matt. “How come you didn’t answer me?” he demanded. “We’ve been calling you for half an hour.”

“I–I guess I didn’t hear you,” Matt stammered. But that didn’t make any sense either! What was going on? He tried to force his mind into focus, and went over it all again.

He and his dad had spotted the deer, and he’d circled around. Then he’d heard the deer, and moved toward it so silently that it hadn’t heard him at all. He’d loaded the clip, raised the 30–06 rifle to his shoulder, and drawn a bead on the buck.

And then…

There it was again! Something touching the very edge of his memory, just beyond his grasp! He’d been aiming at the deer — had it in his sight!

But something had happened.

Had he heard something?

Felt something?

Smelled something! That was it! There’d been a strange aroma in the air — the same aroma he’d smelled last night after he’d gone to bed, when —

Suddenly, his skin crawled and he felt a sheen of cold sweat spread over him. He felt sort of dizzy, and —

“Jeez, Matt!” he heard Eric say. “What’s going on with you? How come you didn’t even go look at the buck?”

“G-Go look at him?” Matt stammered. “I thought — I mean, he got away, didn’t he? I had him in my sights for a second, but then — ”

Eric stared at him. “You mean you didn’t shoot him?”

Shoot him? What was Eric talking about? He shook his head.

“Then who did?”

“Maybe my dad — ” Another image flicked through Matt’s mind. While he had the gun trained on the deer, he’d seen something else, beyond the deer. Something like…

A face?

No! It couldn’t have been! Besides, what did it matter? He hadn’t even pulled the trigger!

“We can’t find your dad either,” Eric told him. “Come on — I’ll show you the buck.”

Eric led him toward the thicket in which the deer had been standing, and as they threaded their way through the trees, Matt kept trying to make sense out of it all. But no matter how hard he tried to figure it out, he was still missing almost an hour from the morning.

An hour during which he’d apparently stood absolutely still, holding the Browning in his hands.

Half an hour during which Eric Holmes had been calling him, and he’d heard absolutely nothing.

Half an hour in which…

What?

As he followed Eric through the trees a terrible feeling came over him. It was the same feeling he had when he woke up in the morning from the nightmares that left nothing in their wake except fear, and a feeling of terrible exhaustion, as if he hadn’t been sleeping at all. Suddenly he wasn’t sure he wanted to remember the missing hour. And then, a few yards ahead, he saw it.

The big buck lay on its side at the exact spot where he’d seen it standing earlier. Marty Holmes was crouched over it, and as Eric and Matt approached, he stood up and grinned at Matt. “Good shooting. One clean shot right through the head.”

Matt said nothing. The buck’s eyes were wide open, and as he gazed down at it, Matt had the eerie sensation that the buck was staring back at him.

Accusing him.

“But I — ” he began, but quickly fell silent, his eyes still fixed on the deer.

“Matt says he didn’t shoot it,” Eric said.

“What do you mean, you didn’t shoot it?” An uncertain look came into Marty Holmes’s eyes. “Where’s Bill?”

Matt pointed in the direction of the bluff. “He was right over there,” he said. As he gazed at the spot, the memory of the flicker of movement he’d seen in the gun sight popped back into his mind. Could it have been his dad? Of course not! If it was, surely he wouldn’t have pulled the trigger! He grasped at the idea like a straw in the wind. “That’s why I didn’t shoot,” he said. “I didn’t want to risk hitting my dad — ”

Marty Holmes’s expression darkened as he turned and started toward the bluff, pushing his way through the branches that blocked his path, Eric following right behind him. As a terrible fear began to gnaw at his gut, Matt looked once more at the deer he’d last seen in the sight of his rifle, then hurried to catch up with Eric and Marty Holmes. A few moments later they were on the trail that ran along the top of the bluff. Almost against his own will, Matt made himself look down.

For a moment he saw nothing, but then, almost hidden by the bushes it had fallen through, he saw it.

A body.

And even though it lay facedown, he knew exactly who it was.

His stepfather.

“No,” he breathed. “I didn’t shoot. I know I didn’t shoot!”

But when he opened the Browning’s clip, he knew he was wrong. Of the five cartridges he’d loaded, only two remained.

Three bullets — bullets he clearly remembered loading himself — were missing.

* * *

JOAN HAPGOOD EYED the stacks of frozen pizza as if they were so many cobras waiting to strike. Which, in truth, they might as well have been, since she knew it wouldn’t matter which one she finally reached for — when she got home it would turn out to be the wrong one, and her mother’s words would certainly be sharper than a serpent’s tongue. Make up your mind, she told herself. Just make up your mind, put them in the cart, and go home. If it’s wrong, you can bring it back tomorrow.

But it wasn’t just that. If she chose the wrong pizza — and she knew there was no possibility of choosing the right one — her mother would harp on it all day long. On the other hand, her mother would find something to harp on anyway, so what did it matter if it was the pizza or something else? Pulling the freezer open, she tried to remember whether it was pepperoni or sausage her mother had declared inedible, then gave up and tossed two of each into the grocery cart. No worse to be hanged for being a spendthrift than for bringing the wrong thing.

She finished the shopping, went through the checkout stand, and loaded the groceries into the Range Rover, then glanced at her watch: almost ten. Where had the time gone? She would have to hurry if she was going to get home, put everything away, tend to her mother, and still get to the caterers by eleven to go over the last details for Matt’s party tonight.

After the dinner last night, she almost wished she could simply cancel the party.

But that wouldn’t happen — it would just be four times worse than last night — or, more accurately, ten times worse, since they’d had only three guests last night, and there would be thirty tonight. She was not looking forward to it, hadn’t been looking forward to it since the night Bill left. She’d been sure he was bluffing then, assumed he’d stay away that night and be back the next morning. Except Bill hadn’t come back.

He hadn’t even called.

The days had crept slowly by, and she just as slowly came to understand that he might not be back, at least not right away. Over and over again she’d replayed the arguments they’d had about her mother, and eventually she had to admit to herself that Bill was more than half right — he’d tried to talk about the problems her mother was causing them — and all she’d done was put him off. When she came to that conclusion, she’d picked up the telephone book and begun looking for someplace to put her mother. But even as she stared at the listings in the yellow pages — beautifully scripted advertisements for Continuing Care Facilities and Leisure Living Centers and Retirement Environments — she knew she would never be able to do it. She would never be able to send her mother to a nursing home — no matter what they called it, or how nice it looked. The only reason she’d even considered finding a place for her mother was to repair her marriage, not to give her mother the best life she could.

But as the time Bill was gone lengthened, she’d started feeling as if she were literally being torn apart, her mother pulling at her from one side, her husband from the other. And she was caught in the middle, with no escape.

The problem was that deep in her heart, she knew that Bill was right, that for his sake and for Matt’s sake — even for her own sake — she should find a place for her mother. Matt was already suffering, though she hadn’t realized just how much until last night. And she’d seen the unhappiness in Bill’s eyes too.

She’d tried to ignore what she herself was going through, but as she steered the Rover back toward Hapgood Farm, she found herself going slowly, putting off as long as she could the moment when she would have to start dealing with her mother again.

Her mother, and Cynthia.

Cynthia, who had become almost as strong a presence in the house as her mother. Not an hour went by that her mother didn’t speak of her long-dead sister.

If it goes on much longer, I’m going to start to hate her, Joan thought as she turned through the gates. And she’d never hated Cynthia. Even now she could remember how she’d adored her older sister when they were growing up. Cynthia had been everything she had not — blond, and beautiful, and graceful. She’d loved nothing more than sitting on Cynthia’s bed, her arms wrapped around her knees as she watched her sister get ready for a date.

And Cynthia had many dates — practically every boy her age wanted to go out with her. Cynthia went out with them all, and every night when she got home Joan would sneak into her room and the two of them would whisper in the darkness for hours as Cynthia told her everything that had happened.

Now, though, it was her mother who whispered in the darkness for hours. But it wasn’t always whispering, and it wasn’t always in the darkness. But it was always about Cynthia, and what would happen when Cynthia got home. Every day, her mother spent hours in what Joan had already come to think of as Cynthia’s room, going through everything over and over again, making certain that everything was in its place, that nothing had been touched.

And screaming at her if she so much as set a foot through the door.

Would the screaming of her guilt be any worse, if she put her mother into one of the facilities she’d found in the yellow pages? Joan wondered. She had actually driven by one of them a few days ago. It was a lovely three-story brick Colonial surrounded by beautiful gardens, and if you didn’t notice the people in wheelchairs sitting under the trees — wrapped in heavy scarves against the nip in the fall air — it would be easy to mistake it for someone’s private home. But even as she enjoyed the beauty of the place, Joan remembered the things she’d read about how the elderly were sometimes treated.

Tied into a chair and left in the hall for hours.

Strapped into bed at night and kept so drugged they didn’t even have the will to complain.

She could never do that to her mother. Never.

And so, tonight, she would stand next to Bill in the receiving line at Matt’s party and try to pretend that nothing was wrong, that they were just going through what some of her friends called “a bad patch” in their marriage, though she suspected that what her friends usually meant by “a bad patch” was that their husbands were having an affair. Bill would be fine, of course; a talent for always being gracious and never letting his true emotions show had been bred into him for generations.

I’ll get through it, she told herself. I’ll get through it somehow.

She came around the last curve in the driveway and was pulling the car into the carriage house when she noticed that a fourth car had joined the group parked in the area behind the house.

The brand-new black-and-white Ford Taurus that the town had bought for Dan Pullman in recognition of his tenth year as the Granite Falls police chief.

Mother! she thought. Oh God, what’s happened? What’s she done?

Leaving the groceries in the car, she hurried to the house, letting herself in through the back door. Dan Pullman was standing in the kitchen, and there was something about the look in his eyes as he turned to face her that told Joan the problem wasn’t her mother.

“What is it?” she breathed. “What’s happened?”

Pullman hesitated, but knew there was no way to break the news gently. “There’s been an accident, Joan,” he said, running a hand through his shock of steel gray hair as he uncomfortably shifted the weight of his six-foot-two-inch frame from one foot to the other.

“Not Matt!” she gasped, her heart racing.

Pullman shook his head. “It’s Bill,” he said softly, the emotion in his voice telling her just how bad it was.

“Oh God,” she whimpered, sinking onto a chair. “No. Please… no…”