Deep in the Darkness (17 page)

"What's wrong?"

"It's Rosy..."

"What about her? Is she not feeling well?" Wishful thinking. I figured out what had happened before he told me. Odds-on favorite here in Ashborough.

"She's dead." His voice was dry and mechanical, the tears suddenly cut off. A silence loomed between us...well, not a total silence. Phillip's raspy breathing cut through the phone like static, filtering into my head as though electrically charged.

I broke the hush with, "My God, that's terrible. How did it happen?"

More silence, and I'd hoped that some kind of revelation would overpower his lips. "Michael...we need to talk."

I saw this as an invitation—as well as a kind of cheap, shameful victory. It appeared I was finally going to get some answers even though it took the death of Rosy Deighton to get them, something I—for the moment—didn't really care about. This doctor had become numb to adversity over the past twenty-four hours, and had subsequently fallen into survival mode. It was do or die, and now was the time to
do
.

"So...let's talk."

"In person...not on the phone."

"I'm not leaving my house, Phil." And I meant it too.

"I'll come to you."

I was about to disagree, but pleaders can't be picky, and I was teetering on the edge of damnation with my only ray of light dimming very quickly. Phillip was that last bit of hope, and as they once taught me in bible studies many years ago,
do as He says and you shall find salvation.
Phillip wasn't exactly
He
, but as far as I was concerned, he might just be the next best thing.

"Okay," I agreed, my voice sounding distant to me. I felt overcome with fear again. Would Phillip Deighton have some answers for me? Would he be the bringer of good news, or the harbinger of iniquity? The uncertainty of his role in my crisis brought to me levels of anxiety on par with the on-hands experience of Lauren Hunter's ruin. I felt no
 
safer letting him into my home. And to think moments earlier I'd found myself wishing for his assistance in fleeing my risks; now it felt as though he would be bringing more of them to me.

I hung up the phone, realizing a half minute later that Phil had already disconnected the line. I thrust myself away from the table, then crossed the living room and went outside onto the porch to wait for him. Darkness had swallowed up the last remnants of the day, a solid layering of gray clouds absorbing any possibility of blue moonlight. I reached back inside and switched on the porch light. By the time Phillip arrived ten minutes later, a cloud of moths was fluttering about it.

As he paced up the driveway I immediately speculated by the pained look on his face that he'd
needed
to get away from his house; Rosy had died there and this bereaved man's first instinct was to flee the locale of her demise. I also knew that obeying this initial impetus could lead to further digression, hence forcing him to succumb to the harsh ills taunting his mind. Step one, come tell all to Michael. Step two, shake his hand good-bye. Step three, go ménage a trois with twelve inches of bath water and a live radio. Here I come, Rosy, won't be long now. Kind of like that.

He paced up the driveway, eyes darting between me and the gravel meeting his booted footsteps. He wore a pair of denim jeans and a jacket, and a Red Sox baseball cap that sat crookedly upon his head. When he reached the porch he took the cap off and his dark puffy eyes met mine. His face was the color of redwood leaves. He broke down as he paced up the steps, nearly dropping to one knee at the top. I grabbed him by the forearm and led him into one of the rattan chairs, holding on even after he sat down. He shook his head back and forth in obvious denial, running his free hand across his damp brow. "She's suffered so much...and if that wasn't enough for them, they had to take her from me."

"Who, Phil? Who are you talking about?"

"You know who I'm talking about." His voice was like sandpaper. Broken by sobs. He kept his gaze away from mine.

"The Isolates..."

He nodded, then looked up at me. "You
do
believe me, don't you Michael?"

I didn't answer him. "What happened to Rosy, Phil?"

He hesitated, then said, "They came in the middle of the night. As usual, I had all the windows and doors locked, but just like last time they found their way into the house. They're no different than rats or cockroaches, Michael. They have no feeling, no sense of compassion, only drive. It's all instinctual. When they want something they just come out and get it and nothing can hold them back, locked doors included."

It was at this moment I remembered the steel doors that Neil Farris had installed in his office, two of them closing out either ends of the hallway. I'd changed them the first week I moved in. All of a sudden, I wished I hadn't.

"And last night," he continued, "they decided to take Rosy. They found a way into the house, don't ask me how, and they snatched her from our bed. Jesus, I didn't even know it'd happened until I awoke in the morning and saw that Rosy was gone."

I rubbed my lips, swallowed something hard and fiery in my throat. Damn it, I believed him. I didn't want to, but I did. Still, I had to come at him with some kind of off-pitch angle, an innocent-until-proven-guilty kind of perspective. "Phil, are you sure she just didn't get up and leave? I mean, how do you know she was actually kidnapped?"

"Kidnapped? Did I say she was kidnapped, Michael? No...they
kidnapped
her the first time and just look at how they brought her back to me, all
chewed up
, and there wasn't one doctor at Ellenville Hospital that'd been willing to help her. They knew what they would've been in for if they had. Oh, thank God for Neil Farris, God bless his soul, he took care of my Rosy, although now I wonder now if it'd been all worth it. She suffered like a bastard for the past five years, lived in constant fear. And then Neil, he paid the price."

"So Neil wasn't killed by a dog, then."

"No, no." He closed his eyes, coughed, then added, "He was killed by
them
. And so was my Rosy."

I placed a tense fist against my chin. "You said that they took her from your bed."

"Yes..."

"And killed her."

"Yes."

"So where's her body, Phil?"

He looked up at me, eyes blank and looking over my shoulder as if Death itself had been standing behind me, tuning into our conversation.

"Ain't no body. They killed her...right in my bedroom, while I was asleep, then took her away. That's what they always do."

The deer, gone. Lauren Hunter, gone...

Despite everything I'd seen and heard and experienced—they'd taken the deer away, Lauren Hunter too—I was still having trouble believing him. Denial, in all its glory.
 
"Tell me something, Phil. If there's no body, then how do you know she's really dead? Perhaps she is still alive, someplace we can find her?"

He shook his head no. Then, he blew me away.

Eyes pinning mine, Phillip Deighton reached into the left pocket of his denim jacket. He pulled out a small ziploc bag. Inside were a pair of human eyes, plus a hunk of gray blood-matted hair.

I stepped back against the porch railing, shocked, utterly repulsed, not only by the contents of the bag, but also with the fact that Phillip had
picked them up
and was now dangling them out between us like some sort of sick show-and-tell exhibit. Instantly I hated Phillip, feared him, felt an uncommon dislike simply standing here before his frail form. I took a deep breath. A breeze swept by; the late July air felt cold and slimy. It brought something awful smelling, like rotten fruit. For the umpteenth time today I wanted to throw up but suppressed the gurgling acids in my throat. Phillip put the bag back into his pocket—the eyes made a soft bloody squelching noise as he did this—my gaze following the slow rhythm of his movement as though hypnotized by it. He then put his hands in his lap and began rocking gently back and forth.

Now a familiar sense of fear prevailed, and I wondered for a fleeting moment if Christine had had any inkling of the
real
danger that persisted here. Probably not. I looked into the darkness of the house, the single glow of the kitchen chandelier barely making its way to the front door. The living room furniture sat like phantoms in the dark, their hulks intimidating in their motionlessness. Upstairs, my family slept, unaware of the dangers lurking, yet unwittingly affected by their foul intentions. The predicaments that had made themselves known to them were diminutive in their threats as compared to the true dangers lying just beneath the surface. My job was to convince them of its presence before we too play victim to their dark intentions.

But even if you do convince Christine of the dangers here, Michael, how do you intend to leave with no means of transportation?

Phillip
.

"Phillip?"

He remained silent, gaze cast down. He looked pathetic, he needed to be institutionalized. I wasn't too far behind. "I've no more reason to live, Michael. I failed them once again, and now they will taunt me until they decide it is my time to serve their needs. I'm fucked, royally fucked."

You've been royally fucked for a long, long time...

Feeling dizzy, I leaned back against the railing, and even though I had a very strong inkling, I still asked, "What do you mean that 'you've failed them once again'?" I thought about what he told me in the woods that day, about how they'd taken his daughter, and then what they apparently did to Rosy.

How he'd 'failed them' in the past.

Finally he peered up at me. He looked like he'd been through a hell of a war, cheeks hollowed, eyes dark and sunken. "I told you all about it when we went into the woods that day, when I showed you their shrine." He paused, eyes pinning mine intensely, just like they did when he first told me, "All the residents of Ashborough must make a sacrifice to the Isolates. And the sacrifice must be alive at the time of offering." It'd haunted me, and damn near murdered me now to hear it again from his lips.

"I'd told you all about this," he continued, "about the legend, about how Old Lady Zellis had informed me of the brutal truth all those years ago. It'd been her duty back then to warn folks of the law here in Ashborough. But not anymore, no, she's old and weary...has been for at least twenty years now. Now we do it, the townsfolk. And it was my duty as your closest neighbor to get you to make a sacrifice. I failed. You didn't do it. And because of that, they took Rosy from me."

"It was you who put the deer in the shed, wasn't it?"

He nodded, eyes downcast, looking weak and ashamed. "Both of them. I'd assumed you'd thought I was a bit nuts, and rightly so, after the whole grand tale I told you. I mean, I would've too if I were in your shoes. But, I still needed to convince you that the sacrifice had to be made, and if I kept telling you to do it then you'd've thought I was totally out of my mind and you'd've very quickly separated yourself and your family from me and Rosy. You know what I'm saying? Stay away from crazy Phil, old bastard's a few cards short of a full deck. Still, I knew that if I'd just planted a seed in your head, it just might germinate and you'd start thinking seriously about the sacrifice, and perhaps heed my warning. As it
 
turns out, it didn't work."

"So you put the deer in the shed hoping that I'd haul it up there on their stone."

"Yes...I had no choice but to try."

"What about the woman, Phillip? Did you send her to me as well?" My voice had a sudden shaky, distracted tone to it, one barely recognizable as my own. This was anticipatory fear of my neighbor answering
yes
to this question.
That'd be the icing on the cake: my closest neighbor is a homicidal maniac too...

He looked up at me, face gone to stone with shock. "What woman?"

"One of my patients, Lauren Hunter. Lived on the east side of town. She was severely mutilated in the woods just outside my house. Spent her last breathing moments crawling to my door. Bled to death before I could get help."

"When did this happen?"

"Today."

He shook his head defiantly, burying his face in his hands. "They did it...they were testing you to see if you'd make the sacrifice. They're very serious about the games they play." He paused, then asked, "Did they come for the body after she died?"

My heart started banging against my ribcage. "Yes...the deer too."

He nodded. "It's their way of telling you that you missed your opportunity, and that you should prepare for the next one. Dear God, Michael," he cried, raising his voice. "Make the sacrifice now, tonight, before they come for Jessica or Christine!"

A series of emotions rose up inside me, fear, anger, frustration, all rolled up into one evil brew. It made me aggressive, and I responded by grabbing Phillip by the collar. "
Damn you, Phillip! Why didn't you warn me the first day I moved in!"
He fell limp in my grasp, like a bag of oats. I let him go and he slumped in the chair. "You were so cordial and kind that day, offering us lunch, and all along you knew that my family was in grave danger, you...you fucking fraud!"

"I couldn't tell you!" he shouted, then took a few short breaths and continued more quietly as if realizing that he might wake up the girls. "They hear what's going on, Michael. They listen to our conversations...any time they want to. Don't ask me how they do it, could be supersonic hearing, radio signals, ESP. I don't know. If I'd said anything to you that could've been interpreted as a warning, they might've killed me, or Rosy. Understand...I couldn't mention it at the time. That's why I sent you upstairs, into my bedroom. I knew that if you'd seen Rosy, it might've clued you in as to the evil that exists here."