Ghost Light (40 page)

Cindy immediately detected the edge of accusation in his voice which, for the last day or two, seemed to have been there no matter what he said, even when he was asking for a glass of milk. At first she wasn’t sure what he meant, but then she realized that he was talking about them staying at the apartment in Portland.

“Umm, I’m not sure just yet,” she said softly.

Her gaze kept drifting to the rearview mirror as though she expected to see that same white van, its driver grinning maniacally from behind the steering wheel as he pulled up behind her and start riding close to her rear bumper.

“I just want to get Alice’s car back to her and have a look around first,” she said. Earlier that morning, she had tried calling from a phone booth in Gray, but when she had gotten no answer, she had assumed Alice had gone off to work as usual. She had considered calling her at work, but they had already agreed on the night she left that Alice would leave the keys to Cindy’s car in the ashtray so she could pick it up, and Cindy would do the same for her when she returned it.

Billy sniffed with disgust as he shook his head and glared at her. It pained Cindy to realize how she was the object of his intense hatred, but she consoled herself with the thought that this wasn’t really the case; he was hurting and angry about other parts of his life—parts which she had no control over but was trying her damndest to fix.

So why couldn’t he see that?

Why didn’t he realize that she was doing
everything
in her power for him and his sister!

The rest of the drive back to Portland was mostly quiet, broken only by a few of Cindy’s exclamations about the beautiful foliage, which she encouraged both kids to appreciate. Having grown up in Nebraska, they weren’t used to this kind of scenery, but any trace of enjoyment or relaxation she might have been feeling instantly dissolved as soon as she was driving down Forest Avenue. Rushes of chills played up and down her back as she slowed for the turn onto Coyne Street.

“I—uh, let’s just drive by once and have a little look around first, okay?” she said to no one in particular.

From the back seat, Billy muttered something she was glad she didn’t catch. She snapped on her turn signal and took the turn, driving slowly as she approached the apartment building. To control her rising nervousness, she concentrated on taking deep, even breaths.

What the hell am I so afraid of, anyway?
she wondered.
What do I think will happen?

They drove past the building. When she looked up at its white sides, glowing like marble in the strong morning sunlight, she had a strong, almost overwhelming sensation of detachment. The building looked so strange, so oddly foreign to her, that she couldn’t quite accept the idea that, right up until two days ago, she and the kids had actually lived there. In an uncanny, disorienting sort of way, it seemed like a place that she had only heard about or else experienced in the far distant past.

“Hey, there’s your car,” Billy said. “Are you gonna just take it?”

Cindy shrugged as she slowed down and almost pulled into the driveway; but then she continued down the street, determined to check out the whole area before stopping. At the stop sign, she turned right onto Beacon Street, then right again onto Lincoln Street.

“Hey, wait a minute. This is where I came that day I walked home from school,” Krissy said. Her voice had a peculiar flatness to it, and just hearing it made Cindy worry about how Krissy was handling all of this. Had she sustained some deep psychological damage from everything that had happened to her?

Surprised to hear Krissy speak at all, Cindy glanced over at her and winced as she tried to imagine the fear and anxiety the little girl must have felt that day she realized the man in the white van really
was
following her. She reached out and took Krissy’s hand in hers, giving it a firm, reassuring squeeze. She was surprised by how cold and limp Krissy’s hand had felt inside her grip.

At the end of Lincoln Street, she took another right onto Forest Avenue, and then another onto Coyne Street. As she approached the building, she drove even slower this time. Once she was assured things looked absolutely the same on the second pass, she pulled into the driveway and stopped the car.

“Can I go in and take a look around?” Billy asked after unsnapping his seat belt and stepping out into the driveway.

“No, I don’t think so,” Cindy said.

She pulled the keys from the ignition, opened the ash tray, and dropped them into it. Then she and Krissy got out of the car and walked over to where hers was parked. She shivered and hugged her shoulders, suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling that—somewhere—hidden just out of sight, someone was watching them.

“Aww, come on, Aunt Cindy” Billy said with a high, irritating whine in his voice. “I left some stuff behind that I want to get.”

“No. It can wait,” Cindy said, trying to keep the edge of rising terror out of her voice. “Come on, both of you get into the car, and let’s get going.”

She looked fearfully up at the flat reflections in the apartment building’s second story windows, and for a dizzying moment, she thoroughly expected to see someone up there looking down at her. She shivered, imagining that she might see a pale, ghostly image of herself staring out at the street from every window in the building. Hurriedly, she opened the passenger’s door for Krissy and strapped her in.

“Come on, Billy!” she said, pointing at the car and trying hard not to shout. “Get into the car—
now!
”

Muttering something under his breath about how unfair she was being, Billy opened the car door and dropped onto the back seat. He made a point of slamming the door shut behind him.

After casting one last fearful glance up at the apartment windows, Cindy slid in behind the steering wheel and shut the car door. At first, when she opened the ash tray and felt around for her keys, she didn’t find them. A sudden tightening of fear gripped her. She was afraid that Alice had forgotten to leave the keys for her, and that she was going to have to leave in Alice’s car and come back again. Then her fingertips brushed against them. Sighing loudly, she pulled out the keys and stared at them in her hand as if she didn’t quite know what to do with them.

“I think we should at least go in and say hello to Alice?” Billy said. “We should let her know that we’re taking your car so she won’t think it’s been stolen.

“No.” Cindy shook her head tightly. “She’ll know it was us when she sees that her own car is back.” Cindy grimaced as she slipped the key into the ignition and turned it, starting up the car. She was still unable to get rid of the pressing, nervous feeling that they were being watched. Her eyes kept jerking back and forth, scanning the neighborhood, especially the upstairs windows of the apartment building as if she expected something to come flying out at them. Sighing again, she backed out of the driveway and onto the street.

“Let’s go back to the lake for now,” she said in a voice that, to her own ears, sounded tight and near breaking. “I’ll give Alice a call later tonight, and we’ll see how things are.”

“Yeah, sure—great,” Billy said from the back seat. “There’s nothing to do up there at the lake!”

Cindy forced a smile as she glanced at him in the rearview and said, “Well, maybe if you stop your complaining, I might even let you drive a little bit again.”

“Yeah, that’d be neat!” Billy shouted, leaning forward and grabbing the back of the seat. Cindy smiled weakly, glad to hear a flash of enthusiasm in his voice, even if it did only last for a second or two.

3

I
f Alex had been upset before, then he was
royally
pissed off now!

Ever since he got out of bed this morning, even after having breakfast, his stomach had been growling with a cold, aching emptiness. Just to be on the safe side, in case finding the camp on Little Segabo took longer than he expected it would, he stopped for a quick lunch at a small restaurant called Dell’s, in downtown Gray. But the hamburger, fries, and draft beer he ordered took much too long to be served, and it was well past one o’clock before he was back on the road. To top it all off, the greasy meal wasn’t sitting well in his stomach, and he kept burping up sour acid into the back of his throat. He wished he felt like going back to the store at the Mobil station to buy a roll of Turns, but he didn’t want to lose any more time; besides, there was no way in hell he wanted to see or talk to the three old men who were no doubt still posted outside the store on the bench. It was getting dark earlier now, around six o’clock, and that gave him just about five hours to find the camp, and by Jesus! he
had
to find Cindy and the kids today!

He drove west on Route 202, and this time he had no problem finding the right turn; it was there by the gray asphalt shingled building that looked like it might once have been a corner store but was now, according to the large, peeling sign nailed above the sagging porch, “West Gray Antiques.” The porch was piled high with old furniture, and through the dirt-streaked windows, he could see stacks of old-fashioned chairs and an array of straw baskets.

Alex was pissed that he hadn’t noticed it before.
Christ!
he thought, shaking his head.
I must have been half-asleep when I passed this place earlier this morning.

After taking the turn, he followed the road a little more than two miles until he came to the left hand turn, which he found just as the old man outside the store had described it. At the turn there was a large, white-painted wooden frame from which hung more than a dozen small, rectangular signs, all of which were painted white and bore the names of the families that had camps down the road. Scanning the signs quickly, Alex saw, about halfway down, the name “TOLAND,” printed in chipped and fading black letters.

“Yes
sir
!” he said, breaking out with a wide grin as he slowed for the turn. A tingling excitement coursed through him as he started down the dirt road.

The road curved around to the right, passing between a small green farmhouse and a gray-weathered barn, and then down a steep incline. There were several pieces of heavy machinery lined up outside behind the barn. A small, dun-colored mutt trotted from behind the barn and stood in the entrance, slowly turning his head to watch as the van went by. Up ahead, through a V-shaped break in the trees, Alex caught a glimpse of distant purple-hazed mountains and the deep blue water of the lake, which sparkled like diamonds with reflected sunlight. The road wasn’t in the best shape, and the chassis of the van rattled and chattered as Alex weaved back and forth, trying to avoid the deepest ruts and washouts. Halfway to the bottom of the hill, he turned left again, and the road got even worse. Exposed tree roots and rocks the size of football helmets stuck up high enough to scrape the underside of the van. At one spot, a stream had washed out a wide section of the road. No matter how slowly he went over it, he couldn’t prevent the van from bottoming out.

Shit, this can’t be the right place
, Alex thought, but he reminded himself that he had followed the old timer’s directions perfectly, so unless the old fart was having himself some kind of a hoot, giving out-of-towners wrong directions, this
had
to be it. Through the thick stands of trees off to his right, he caught a better view of the lake. The bright white sparkles of reflected sunlight left swirling afterimages dancing like tracer bullets across his vision. The opposite shore looked surprisingly close until he realized it was either an island or peninsula. Beyond that, he could see a wider stretch of rippling blue water.

Alex slowed the van to a crawl, not so much because he wanted to spare the van’s suspension, but because he wanted to make sure he didn’t miss the camp. The old man had said it was red with white trim, but—at least so far—all he had seen were two or three unpainted, weather-stained shacks that were overgrown with moss and decay, and looked like they were more than likely to cave in under a load of winter snow. Then, just as he crested a slight rise, he saw the coffee pot-shaped sign that was nailed to the thick trunk of a pine tree.

“TOLAND” was written above the coffee pot in a winding swirl of gray as if the name were part of the steam coming from the pot’s snout.

“Fuckin’-a, now ain’t that cute,” Alex whispered with a chuckle. It took a great deal of effort to keep himself from whooping out loud with joy. “Looks like that asshole didn’t rip it off with the snow plow after all.”

As he pulled to a stop by the side of the road, his grip tightened on the steering wheel so hard it hurt the palms of his hands. Heaving a satisfied sigh, he jammed the gear shift into
park
and looked down at the camp.

Just like the old timer had said, it was a small cabin that was painted red with trim that might have been white once, but was now peeling and weather-stained to a lifeless yellow that looked like old bone in the shade of the pine trees. The main building was nestled at the bottom of a steep incline, its front porch not more than twenty feet from the narrow strip of sandy beach at the water’s edge. To one side, there was a smaller shed with an attached carport that was filled with old machinery, rusted tools, and rotting cardboard boxes.

“Christ, people sure do like to hang on to their old shit around here,” Alex whispered, remembering the pile of clutter in the antique store.