The Walker in Shadows (9 page)

Winston Churchill, it is said, conducted World War II on three hours of sleep a night, augmented by frequent naps. Pat was not one of the napping kind; her afternoon sleep always left her cross and groggy, fit only for an early night. She went to bed at ten. Mark's light was still on. He had been at his desk since seven, and when she glanced in to say a rather cool good-night she was softened by the evidences of scholarly industry. His desk was piled high with books and he was taking notes with furious energy.

But instinct prevails. Pat woke in the post-midnight dark fully alert and vibrant with apprehension. At first she could not account for her feeling of impending danger. The house was quiet except for the usual creaking of shutters and thumping of radiators. Albert lay at the foot of the bed snoring and twitching, dreaming of mice.

Jud usually slept with Mark-in his bed, if he could get away with it. As Pat lay wide-eyed in the dark, listening, she heard the faint metallic jingle that accompanied the dog's movements-the rattle of his license, ID, and rabies tags. She knew, however, that this noise had not awakened her. Jud sometimes walked in the night, looking for food, water, or entertainment, especially if Mark had roused enough to kick him out of the bed. Her sleeping mind had long since learned to ignore this familiar sound.

With a sigh she swung her feet onto the floor and padded down the hall to Mark's room. Somehow she knew what she was going to find: a smooth, unrumpled bed, the spread as neat as it had been that afternoon when she made it.

She went to the window. The foliage had filled out, and it was difficult to see the house next door, but a faint gleam from the window of the master bedroom cut through the night. Kathy's window was dark. Moonlight traced the shape of the flowering apple tree at the back corner, turning it into a pale cloud of whiteness.

Pat swore, using some of the words she had learned from Mark. Muttering to herself, she went back to her room and dressed quickly in jeans and shirt, slipping her feet into a pair of worn sneakers. The hall light was on, as it always was at night. The rest of the house was dark. Pat pressed the switches as she proceeded, down the stairs and along the passsage to the kitchen, remembering how the lights had moved through Halcyon House on the previous night. She hoped Josef wouldn't see her lights and come rushing to the rescue. That could be disastrous, if what she was beginning to fear was true.

There was no one in the kitchen except Jud, sitting hopefully by the back door. When he saw Pat his tail switched and his mouth opened, emitting a long moist pink tongue. The chain on the kitchen door dangled.

Pat left the door on the latch, shoving Jud back inside with a peremptory foot when he would have accompanied her. One hurt, irritated yelp followed her; then came silence. Jud was not much of a barker.

As soon as she stepped off the path into the long grass, her shoes were soaked with dew. She had to go around to the front gate. There was no other way through to the next house. A streetlight some distance away sent long shadows wavering eerily across the sidewalk. Pat thought of going back for a flashlight, and decided that on this occasion she had better not risk it.

The night was abnormally still. The click of the latch on the gate as she closed it behind her echoed like a gunshot. She went through the Friedrichs' gate, leaving it open. Shuffling in the darkness, she tripped over a loose brick in the sidewalk and caught at a tree trunk to keep herself from falling.

The backyard was huge, over two acres in extent, spotted by old trees that spread great pools of dark shadow across the moonlit grass. Some were fruit trees; the pale blossoms looked ghostly in the dimness. Pat went toward the apple tree by Kathy's window. She was beginning to feel a little foolish. Perhaps her hunch had been wrong. But when she put her hand on the tree trunk her fingers recoiled from a clammy lump of some wet, sticky substance. Mud. A large chunk of it, lodged in the wedge between the trunk and the first low-set, spreading branch. Someone had climbed that tree, so recently that the earth left by his shoes was still wet. Pat had no doubt whatever as to the identity of the climber.

She wiped her muddy fingers on the seat of her jeans and tried to think what she should do. Kathy's window was wide open. A wisp of white curtain moved in the night breeze. Had there been a screen in that window? She couldn't remember. If there had been, it had been removed; the end of the curtain flailed out through the opening and then blew back.

She couldn't call out. That would really create a crisis. Josef was still awake. The light from his window cut a wide swath across the darkness, touching the edge of the apple tree. She was sure, with the unerring instinct of infuriated maternity, that her son was up there in Kathy's room, and she had no idea what to do about it.

She had little time to debate. As she stood, raging and uncertain, her hand absentmindedly rubbing the rough bark of the tree, she realized that something was happening up above. The window of the girl's room, which had been as black as a cave mouth, began to lighten. The light was not that of any normal lamp; it was a sickly blue-green glow, phosphorescent and ugly. No sooner had she observed it than she heard a muffled crash from the inte rior of the room; then the light was obscured by a dark shape, and she heard voices. They were mere whispers of sound; but she recognized both of them.

"The branch is there by your foot," muttered her son. "I've got hold of you, don't worry… Quick. It's com-ing."

"I'm all right. Hurry, Mark, please hurry…"

The second voice was Kathy's. Staring up, Pat saw a slim dark shape squirm out of the window, attach itself to the tree, and move downward. Her heart was thudding in her breast. As the light above strengthened, turning the open window into a square of unspeakable, nameless color, the sounds from within increased-crashes, thuds… And Mark was in there, with-whatever it was.

Even as her lips parted, prepared to scream a warning, Mark scrambled onto the tree limb. The light was strong enough to illumine his face, giving his skin a livid, corpselike hue.

Kathy slid down practically into Pat's arms, and the older woman clutched at her. Kathy let out a squeal. Then she recognized Pat, in spite of the darkness. "Goodness, you scared me," she said.

"Mark," Pat gurgled.

"He's here," Kathy said coolly, reaching out an arm to touch Mark as he jumped the last few feet, landing with a squashy thud.

"Hi, Mom. What are you doing here? You ought to be in bed."

For the second time that day Pat's voice failed her. It was not only indignation that rendered her speechless. Something other than light flowed from the open window; a finger of sickening cold touched her, weakening her knees, so that she had to grab at the tree for support. And the smell… No, not a smell; it was no phenomenon that could be identified by any normal sense. Its strangeness assaulted all the senses, making her skin crawl and her nose wrinkle, offending even vision by the noncolor of that ghastly light. The very sounds affronted reason, for they were the sounds of objects moving without anything to make them move.

A particularly appalling crash came from the window. It was followed by footsteps, muffled by distance, but clearly audible-running footsteps, and a cry, cut off almost as soon as it began by another crash.

Pat caught her son's foot as he started back up the tree.

"Not that way," she gasped. "For God's sake, Mark!"

The horrid, sickly light was fading, but the aura of foul cold still wafted in weakening waves from the open window. For once Mark yielded to her demand without argument or delay. He slid back down the trunk.

"That was Mr. Friedrichs," he said. "We've got to get in the house. Kathy, how-"

"The front door," Kathy said. She began to run.

She ran like Atalanta, driven by terror. When Pat caught up with her she was on the porch, groping with frantic fingers along the ledge over the door.

"Here it is," she gasped. "We keep a key there in case-"

Mark snatched it from her shaking fingers and inserted it in the lock. But they had forgotten the extra precautions taken by nervous householders. The door yielded only a few inches and then was held by the chain.

"Get back," Mark said. He flung his full weight against the door.

With a crack the chain snapped and the door flew open. Mark plunged in.

The hall was in darkness, but a light shone down the stairs from the corridor above. With the two women in close pursuit, Mark ran up.

They found Josef Friedrichs in the hall outside Kathy's door. He lay face down on the floor, his arms outflung as if he had tried to snatch at something-or ward it off. All around him were the sparkling, glowing shards of what had once been a tall Chinese vase. Pat had noticed it the night before, the exquisite curving shape of it, and the magnificent reds and pinks and greens of a pattern of chrysanthemums and feeding birds. Its carved teak stand was empty.

Kathy's bedroom door was closed; but Pat was aware that the sounds and the breath of sickly cold air had stopped. Thank God for that, she thought; if he's fractured his skull or broken any bones, it would be dangerous to move him… but not as dangerous as to leave him within the range of the unknown force that had invaded Kathy's room.

She brushed the sobbing girl out of the way and knelt by Josef, her skilled hands searching for the signs that would tell her what she needed to know. Some of the broken shards, melancholy in their reminder of broken beauty, lay on Josef's back. Automatically Pat brushed them off.

The vase had struck him on the side of the head, behind his right ear. A lump was already rising, and a thin trail of blood snaked down his neck and under the collar of his shirt. Minor cuts marked his right hand and forearm. But his pulse was steady, and his breathing regular.

Kathy, held in the protective circle of Mark's arm, struggled to control herself. She brushed pathetically at the tears on her cheek with the back of her hand, leaving a streak of mud across her smooth skin.

"He's all right," Mark assured her, stroking her hair. He was obviously more concerned with Kathy's feelings than with her father's wounds; and his mother shot him a look of active dislike before adding her own words of reassurance.

"There's no fracture, Kathy, just a nasty lump. Unless he has a concussion-"

Josef interrupted the diagnosis by groaning. His eyes opened and stared blankly at Pat. He struggled to a sitting position.

"Kathy," he muttered.

"I'm right here, Dad. I'm fine."

She threw her arms around him, so enthusiastically that he fell back against the wall, giving his head another nasty bump. The Robbinses, mother and son, watched the touching tableau with mixed emotions. Pat wasn't sure what Mark was thinking; her own feelings, a blend of relief, bewilderment, and fright, included a sudden awareness of the fact that she was wearing the jeans she usually used for painting, and that she had neglected to take the curlers out of her hair.

Friedrichs insisted he didn't have to go to the hospital. "I am well aware of the symptoms of concussion," he told Pat brusquely. "If I start seeing double, I'll tell you."

Pat knew a stubborn man when she met one. She didn't argue. But she did prevail in one thing: that the Friedrichs spend what remained of the night at her house. Josef agreed for his daughter's sake. The sight of Kathy's room, a disaster area of broken glass, scattered papers, and toppled furniture, turned all of them a little sick. It wasn't so much the mess as the suggestion of malevolence behind such destruction that was frightening.

Reassured about her father, Kathy responded with enthusiasm when Mark suggested they all have a snack and talk things over. The adults were not so eager.

"Tomorrow is Saturday," Pat pointed out. "We can talk after we've had some sleep. I don't think any of us is in condition to think sensibly just now."

Mark, about to remonstrate, caught Josef's eye, and subsided. It was obvious even to him that among the things that would have to be discussed was his presence in Kathy's bedroom at one o'clock in the morning. He didn't need Kathy's warning nudge to know that his ex cuses would have to be very convincing and his audience very kindly disposed toward him.

Although it was Pat who had insisted on going to bed, she was the only one who failed to woo slumber successfully. The big old house had plenty of bedrooms, it was no problem to find room for two guests. The young people dropped off immediately; and when she peeked into Josef's room he was lying quietly. But she was keyed up and worried; despite Josef's disclaimers she felt she ought to keep an eye on him. On her third visit to his room a voice came out of the dark as she hovered distractedly in the doorway.

"For God's sake, Pat, will you go to bed? Every time you tiptoe in here, that damned dog follows you. He jingles so loud he wakes me up."

Pat crept away, aiming a backward kick at Jud as she did so. He eluded it easily, being accustomed to such signs of disapproval, and jingled down the hall after her. She had been more active than Mark that evening, and Jud had hopes of further activity. But this time Pat disappointed him by falling asleep.

It was well past noon when she was awakened by her son, who was looking revoltingly healthy and alert. He had at least had the tact to bring her a cup of coffee. That cheered her briefly, but then the events of the previous night came back in a flood of horrible memories. She told Mark he was a rude, inconsiderate brat, and tried to put the pillow over her head.

"Everybody else is up," Mark said. "I'm making brunch. Shake a leg."

Pat spent considerable time getting dressed. The memory of her curlers and dirty jeans still rankled, so she put on a new blouse and checked skirt and made up her face with particular care. As she might have expected, Mark greeted her entrance into the kitchen with a piercing whistle and the question, "Where's the party?"