The Voice of the Night

PART THREE
35

Colin spent the rest of Friday in his room. He read parts of the three psychology books that he’d brought home from the library, and he reread some pages as often as half a dozen times. When he wasn’t studying, he stared at the wall, sometimes for as long as an hour, just thinking. And planning.

When he left the house early the next morning, the sky was high and bright and cloudless. He intended to meet Heather at twelve o‘clock, spend the afternoon at the beach, and be home by nightfall; nevertheless, he took a flashlight with him.

He rode his bicycle down to the beach, then to the harbor, even though he didn’t have any immediate business in either of those places. He was taking a roundabout route to his real destination in order to make certain that he wasn’t followed. He could see that Roy wasn’t close behind him, but perhaps the boy was watching from a distance through the same pair of high-power binoculars they had used when they were spying on Sarah Callahan. From the harbor, Colin cycled to the tourist information center at the north end of town. Satisfied that he had no tail, he finally struck out directly for Hawk Drive and the Kingman place.

Even in bright daylight, the abandoned house loomed threateningly at the top of the hill. Colin approached it with uneasiness that changed to quiet fear by the time he entered the gate and started up the broken flagstone walk. If he had been the state official in charge of the property, or the mayor of Santa Leona, he would have called for the complete and immediate destruction of the place for the good of the community. He still thought the house exuded a tangible evil, a menace that could be felt and seen as clearly as the California sunshine that now dazzled his eyes and warmed his face. Three large, black birds circled over the roof and finally perched on a chimney. The house seemed to be aware, watchful, infused with a malignant life force. The weathered gray walls looked scabrous, diseased, cancerous. Rusting nails resembled old wounds: stigmata. Sunlight seemed unable to penetrate the mysterious spaces beyond the missing windowpanes, and from outside, at least, the inside of the mansion appeared to be as dark now as it would be at midnight.

Colin put his bicycle down in the grass, climbed the sagging porch steps, and looked through the shattered window where he and Roy had stood one night not long ago. On closer inspection, Colin saw that some light did reach into the house. The drawing room was visible in every detail. At one time it must have served as a clubhouse for a group of boys-for candy wrappers, empty soda cans, and cigarette butts were strewn across the bare, scarred floor. A faded and tattered Playboy centerfold was fixed above the fireplace, over the same mantel on which Mr. Kingman had lined up the blood-splashed heads of his slaughtered family. The kids who had been using the house as a hangout had not been around for many months-a thick, undisturbed layer of dust covered everything.

The front entrance was unlocked, but the corroded hinges squealed as Colin pushed on the warped door. The wind rushed in around him and stirred up a small cloud of dust in the foyer. Inside, the air was heavily tinted with the odors of mildew and dry rot.

As Colin prowled from room to room, he saw that vandals had been at work in every comer of the huge house. Boys’ names, obscene words, dirty limericks, and crude drawings of male and female genitalia were scrawled wherever there was bare plaster or fairly plain wallpaper. Ragged holes-some only as large as a hand, others nearly as big as a door-had been knocked in the walls. Piles of plaster and splintered laths littered the place.

When Colin stood perfectly still, the old house was ethereally quiet. But when he moved, the arthritic structure responded to each step he took; its joints groaned on all sides of him.

Several times he thought he heard something creeping up behind him, but when he looked he was always alone. For the most part, he moved through the ruins without a thought for ghosts and monsters. He was surprised and pleased by his newly acquired bravery-and just a bit uncomfortable with it. Only a few weeks ago, he would have refused to cross the Kingman threshold by himself, even if there had been a million-dollar prize at stake.

He was in the mansion more than two hours. He did not overlook a room or even a closet. In those chambers where all the windows were boarded shut, he used the flashlight that he had brought along. He spent most of the time on the second floor, exploring every nook-and planning a surprise or two for Roy Borden.