Black Creek Crossing (16 page)

The hand reached out, as if to seize him.

He shrank away, but it didn’t matter.

The forefinger, its nail torn away and hanging only by a thread of cuticle, pointed directly at him, and he felt his flesh begin to crawl as if he himself had just felt the touch of death.

The mouth opened and a croaking voice erupted from the mangled throat.

“
You have to,
” the voice said.
“You want to!”

The finger came closer, and as he felt its touch, a convulsion seized Marty.

An instant later he was wide awake.

His heart was pounding, and the echo of the voice was still in his head:
You have to
.
.
.
you want to.
.
.
.

He lay still, and the images of the dream began to fade. He could hear Myra breathing next to him—the long, slow, even rhythms of sleep.

She wasn’t dead. He hadn’t killed her. It was only a dream.

“
You want to, Marty,
” the voice whispered again.
“You need to. Go on, Marty
.
.
.
do it. Do it now.”

Listening to the voice in his head, knowing what it was telling him to do, Marty Sullivan rose silently from the bed and slipped out of the room, leaving his wife’s sleep undisturbed.

A moment later he stood at the door to Angel’s room, his hand on the knob.

“
Go on, Marty,
” the voice whispered.
“You know what you want
.
.
.
go on
.
.
.
she wants it too
.
.
.
she’s a whore, Marty. She’s only a whore
.
.
.

“She’s your whore.
.
.
.”

Listening to the voice, Marty turned the knob of Angel’s bedroom door and let himself in.

The moon had set when Angel awoke, and the shadows on the wall had vanished into nearly total blackness. Even the sounds of the night had fallen silent.

But what had awakened her?

She lay still, listening.

Nothing.

But then she heard a sound—the creak of a loose floorboard.

Now she could feel something—a presence in the room, close by her bed.

Then she heard a single word, uttered in a whisper so low she almost thought she was imagining it: “Whore.”

Another floorboard squeaked, and she felt the presence in the room draw closer.

The voice whispered again, repeating the loathesome word once more.

Angel felt her heart pound, and she began repeating the words her mother had spoken only a few hours ago: “He loves you, and he’d never do anything to hurt you . . . he loves you and he’d never do—”

“Whore!”

The word struck her with a force that was almost physical, and at the exact moment the word was uttered, she felt a hand touching her.

Touching her chest at exactly the spot where her breasts were beginning to grow.

Terrified, too frightened even to scream, she lay perfectly still, praying that if she didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t cry—not so much as a whimper—it would stop.

He would go away, and the sounds of the night would begin again, and moonlight would stream in the window, and she would be safe.

Instead, the hand on her chest pressed harder, then moved away. For an instant Angel felt a glimmer of hope. But then the hand was back, this time gently pulling the covers away so that all that covered her budding breasts was the thin cotton of her pajama tops.

Fingers reached out of the darkness and began unfastening the buttons of her pajama tops.

Angel clenched her jaw against the scream rising in her throat, and her body stiffened as she tried to prepare herself for the terrible thing that was about to happen.

She felt the heat of the hand poised just above her left breast.

Then, just as she felt the rough skin of a heavily callused hand brush against her nipple, Angel heard a hissing sound.

The hand on her breast was jerked away.

For a few interminably long seconds there was an eerie stillness in the room.

Angel lay perfectly still, too frightened even to breathe now.

More seconds passed—more eternities—but still she didn’t take a breath. And in the stillness and the darkness, she felt the unseen hand moving toward her once again, like a viper slithering silently through deep grass, moving invisibly toward its prey.

Her skin crawled as she felt the hand grow nearer.

Then, out of the darkness, the hissing sound came again, followed by a crash and a brief grunt of pain. A moment later she heard the sound of her bedroom door opening and closing.

Angel lay still for a moment, her heart pounding.

The house had gone silent, but from outside she could once more hear the faint sounds of the night—the hooting of an owl.

She switched on the lamp that stood on her night table, the bright glare momentarily blinding her. As her eyes slowly adjusted to the light, she looked around, at first seeing nothing. Then, on the floor next to her dresser, she saw her piggy bank—a heavy bronze one that she’d been given on her first birthday, and into which she always deposited a little bit of her allowance, even if it was only a penny. How had it gotten there? It was always on top of her dresser, watched over by her teddy bear, who was still leaning against the mirror, just where she’d put him.

But now the piggy bank was lying on its side on the floor.

For several long seconds she stayed in her bed, staring at the object on the floor.

How had it gotten there?

Then, as she tried to remember exactly what had happened, she understood.

Houdini!

Somehow, the cat must have gotten into the room and been on the dresser. And when her father came in—

The cat had leaped at him! Leaped off the dresser, knocking the piggy bank off.

Getting out of bed, she picked up the piggy bank and put it back on the dresser where it belonged. She was about to go back to bed when something in the mirror caught her eye. Her heart suddenly racing again, she whirled around to face whatever was behind her.

And saw nothing.

But there had been something in the mirror—she knew there had!

The cat?

Once again she scanned the room, searching for some sign of the black animal that had appeared the day they moved into the house. “Houdini?” she called out, keeping her voice low enough so it wouldn’t carry beyond the walls of her room. “Here, kitty, kitty. Come on, Houdini—I know you’re in here somewhere.”

Nothing.

She crouched down and looked under the bed, then behind her desk.

Finally she went to the closet and pulled the door open.

The smell of smoke almost overwhelmed her. Gasping, she staggered back and turned away.

Her eyes fell once more on the mirror, and once again she froze. For right behind her, clearly reflected in the mirror, she saw it.

A face.

The face of a girl, about her own age.

Her heart racing, she whirled around again.

And found herself staring into the empty closet.

The smell of smoke was gone.

No,
she told herself.
I didn’t imagine it! I smelled smoke, and I saw a face!

Steeling herself, Angel stepped into the closet. Except for her clothes and a few boxes on the shelf, it was empty.

And the smell of smoke—the acrid aroma so strong a moment ago that it had almost choked her—was completely gone.

Now she smelled nothing except the faint aroma of the cedar that lined one wall of the closet.

Closing the closet door, she leaned against it for a moment, staring across the room at her teddy bear and piggy bank. They were sitting on her dresser, the bear seemingly watching over the piggy bank, just as they had always been.

Her head swimming with confusion, Angel went back to her bed, sat down, and stared for a long time at the teddy bear and the piggy bank.

The cat.

It had to have been the cat!

But where was it?

And what had she smelled, and seen?

What if she’d simply dreamed the whole thing, like she dreamed about the house being on fire the other night?

Wrestling with the confusion, she slid back into the bed and pulled the covers tight around her neck.

Resolutely, Angel turned off the light; the room plunged back into darkness. For a long time she lay awake, staring into the darkness, trying to decide whether any of it had been real or if she had simply dreamed it.
It was a dream,
she told herself.
It was just a dream, and Daddy wasn’t in here at all, and nothing happened, and I’m all right.
Soon, with the night holding her in its embrace, she drifted once again into the same fitful sleep from which she had awakened so short a time ago.

Chapter 17

NGEL?” MYRA SAID. “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?”

Angel nodded automatically, though she barely heard the question.

“You’re sure?” her mother fretted, eyeing her critically. “You look a little peaked. Do you feel like you have a temperature?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” Angel said, digging resolutely into the almost untouched bowl of fast-cooling oatmeal her mother had put in front of her five minutes ago. But despite her words, she wasn’t fine at all, and hadn’t been fine since she’d awakened. Almost as soon as she opened her eyes, the memories of last night came streaming back.

The creaking of the floorboards.

Her father coming into her room.

The touch of his hands on—

She’d shuddered as that memory came flooding back, tried to shut it out, and failed.

Then, as the rest of it came back, she decided that nothing had happened—it had been nothing more than a dream. It had to be, didn’t it? Her piggy bank hadn’t flown off the dresser all by itself, and she hadn’t seen anything in the closet. She couldn’t have smelled the acrid aroma of smoke, since there hadn’t been a fire in the fireplace last night, and the house certainly hadn’t caught on fire.

So if all that had been a dream, her father coming into the room must have been a dream too.

But then as she got out of bed it all changed.

First she saw the marks on the mirror—a drawing, scrawled smearily in what looked like blood.

There was a stick figure, like one she might have drawn in kindergarten, and a jagged line that almost looked like stairs. In fact, it almost looked like the stick figure was going down the stairs.

And under the jagged line was something else—something that looked like a small square.

For several long minutes Angel had stared at the strange marks, her heart racing. Where could they have come from? Then, as she started to get out of bed, she saw that it wasn’t just the mirror that bore the bloodred smears.

Her sheets were stained as well.

And the forefinger of her right hand! She instinctively put the finger to her mouth, as if she’d cut it. But instead of the almost coppery taste of blood, she felt something else on her tongue.

Lipstick!

She’d pulled her finger out of her mouth and stared at it for a moment. How . . . ? Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw something lying on the table by her bed.

The lipstick from the vampire kit—the same one she and Seth were experimenting with yesterday afternoon! Its cap was off and most of it was gone. She felt almost dizzy now as her eyes moved from the ruined lipstick to the marks on the mirror to the stains on her sheets and on her finger.

Had she done it herself? She must have! Then why didn’t she remember?

A wave of panic rose inside her, and she almost called out for her mother. But what would she say to her mother? She had no idea how the markings had gotten on the mirror. And what about everything else? The things that seemed like memories but must have been dreams?

The memories, or dreams, or whatever they were, began churning in her mind, mixing in with the images on the mirror.

She turned to the dresser. The piggy bank was exactly where it should have been.

But the teddy bear was no longer in its regular spot, leaning against the mirror, watching over the piggy bank. Now it was at the end of the dresser, lying facedown.

She was mired in confusion again, and all she wanted was for things to look right—to look the way they had last night, when she’d gone to bed.

She moved the teddy bear back to its regular place, then grabbed some Kleenex from the box on the dresser and began rubbing at the markings on the mirror.

A moment later the stick figure and the other markings had vanished, leaving only a reddish smudge.

A second handful of Kleenex wiped even that away.

Wadding up the tissues, Angel was about to throw them in the wastebasket when she changed her mind. Taking them into the bathroom, she flushed the whole mess down the toilet. Then she scrubbed her hands until every trace of lipstick was gone.

Back in her room, she stared at the lipstick-smeared sheets and pillowcase. A moment later it all vanished beneath the bedspread—this afternoon, when she got home from school, she would wash them. By the time she was dressed, everything was almost as it had been when she went to bed last night.