Rockinghorse (11 page)

He prowled the entire first floor. He found all kinds of damage, much of it done deliberately, wantonly—acts of malicious vandalism. The damage filled him with anger. It also filled him with determination to stick this out, come what may. If, he softened his resolve, his family agreed. He did not want to put them in further danger. They'd have to talk about it. But he knew he was staying.

He rang the newly installed buzzer for Lige. The man did not respond. And that irritated Lucas.

At the foot of the landing leading to the top floors, Lucas paused, looking up at the landing. The rocking horse seemed to be looking down at him. Lucas smiled and shook his head. But, of course, that was impossible.

Standing in the kitchen, he thought he heard a low moaning coming from the veranda. He listened more intently. Yes, there it was. A scratching sound came to him.

He went to the closed door and listened more closely. He could hear a low panting wound. He could not tell if it was human or animal.

Or some combination of both, the thought came to him.

Gripping the doorknob in his left hand, Lucas slowly turned it. The panting sound stopped. He smelled something foul coming from the veranda. He jerked open the door. A scream filled his head. A stinking garment or bag of some sort was thrown over his head. He was jerked out of the kitchen and onto the veranda floor. He struggled and fought his way out of the bag and rolled away, the .45 coming up in his hand. A miracle it hadn't gone off.

His eyes found a dark shape. He pulled the trigger, the booming loud in the night stillness.

An awful shriek filled the air. Then something slammed into the back of his head. Lucas was plunged into darkness.

When he could open his eyes and bring them into focus, he looked up into the concerned face of Tracy. Her frown turned into a smile.

Lucas groaned. “Well, a mighty warrior, I ain't,” he said.

“For a city boy, you do all right,” she assured him. “I wouldn't trade you for a mule.”

“Two mules?”

“Well . . .”

He smiled up at her.

“Whatever it was attacked you, you hit it. There's blood all over the wall there.” She pointed.

“How long have I been out?”

“No more than two or three minutes. It must have been a glancing blow. There's no blood on your scalp. Not even a bump.”

He sat up, rested for a few seconds, then got to his feet. He felt no dizziness. He walked to the wall where she had pointed. He could see the hole left by the big. 45-caliber slug. And all over the wall, blood was splattered.

Lucas looked at the blood for a moment. He felt no spasms of sickness as he looked. Then he leaned forward and sniffed the blood.

Tracy was appalled. “Lucas, what in God's name are you doing?”

“Smell it,” he said.

“I most certainly will not!”

“Come on, honey. Smell it. Then tell me the first thought that comes into your head. It's important, Trace.”

Hesitantly, reluctantly, she came to the wall and sniffed. She recoiled in horror. She looked at her husband. “Lucas, it's . . . old. It smells old. But how can that be?”

“I don't know. But I'll bet you, and give you odds, that's the same blood, or same type of blood, that was found on my walking stick. It's old blood, Tracy.”

“But . . .” She trailed off into silence. She looked at the blood-splattered wall, then at her husband. “I'm scared, Lucas.”

“I'm not real happy with our position, Trace. But they—whoever they might be—will not run me away from this place. I'm not running. I mean that. You and the kids can go on back to New York if you like. But I'm staying.”

“We'll talk about it in the morning. Lucas, you can't be serious!”

His eyes grew bleak. “I'm staying.”

The breaking of dawn found the family tired, even though most had catnapped during the remainder of the night, with Lucas and Tracy taking turns standing guard. Lige Manning had still made no appearance, which both irritated and aroused a great deal of suspicion within Lucas.

While no more violence had been perpetrated against the Bowers family, a more subtle form of harassment had filled the mansion, turning nerve endings raw with tension and filling them all with helpless anger. For there was no place for them to direct their rage.

Laughter had taunted them all night, sometimes mocking, sometimes whispering indecipherable phrases, other times gurgling out the vilest of profanities, going into great detail what might happen to Jackie and Tracy if the family did not leave immediately. Finally, as the monologue of a very profane comedian is prone to do, the vulgarity numbed the listeners, and they paid scant attention to the ugly words. No room in the mansion was safe or free from the taunting, the cursing, the impossible and insane voices that seemed to spring from the air all around them.

Voices with no human forms behind them. Lucas made a cursory inspection of as many rooms as possible, but could find no hidden speakers. He finally gave up his searching.

“Then where is it coming from, Lucas?” Tracy asked.

“I don't know,” he admitted. “But I don't believe in ghosts. There has to be some sort of reasonable explanation.”

Then, as the first gray fingers of dawn began to open, allowing God's light to once more flood the horizon, the hideousness ceased, stopped as abruptly as someone flipping a light switch.

It was almost as if the source behind the laughter, the taunting, the ugly whispering was fearful of the light.

“Is it over?” Tracy asked wearily.

“I guess so,” Lucas replied. “For now.” He held Johnny in his arms; the boy finally fell asleep, scared but too exhausted to stay awake any longer. “All of you try to get some sleep. I'll watch for a couple of hours and then wake you, Trace.”

Above them, on the landing, the rocking horse had rocked itself to the railing. It looked down with an ever-seeing eye at the family, huddled together in a unit.

The rocking horse smiled.

* * *

Kyle stood in the open doorway of the mansion and looked in at the wreckage. He shook his head in astonishment. He had the next few days off, and had stopped by to see if Lucas wanted to accompany him fishing. But
God
! The interior looked as though a tornado had ripped through it.

A sleepy-looking Lucas walked into the reception area. He had heard the sounds of Kyle's car. “Morning, Kyle. No, we didn't have a wild party here last night. Come on, I'll make us some coffee and tell you all about it. I was going to contact you later on this morning.”

“With obvious good reason,” the trooper said very drily.

Kyle noticed the man's right hand, swollen slightly, the knuckles split open; iodine covered the cuts. Blood was splattered all over the front of Lucas's T-shirt.

“Yeah,” Lucas said, managing a laugh. “It was an interesting evening, to say the least.”

The trooper followed Lucas into the kitchen. Along the way he stepped around broken vases and chairs and other debris that littered the hallway. “Jesus,” he muttered.

In the kitchen, Lucas pointed to the veranda outside. “Whatever it was that attacked us last night, I hit one of them. Right out there.”

Kyle looked out. The once-blood-splattered wall was clean.

“What do you mean, Lucas?” Kyle asked. He looked again. He could see nothing out of the ordinary.

Lucas put down the coffee pot and walked to the door, looking out. The wall was blood-free.

“Kyle, that wall,” he pointed, “was splattered with blood not four hours ago. Tracy saw it, too. The blood was . . . well, it smelled, old. We both agreed on that.”

Kyle was thoughtful for a moment. “Like the blood on your walking stick?”

“Right. Yes, that's the very first thing I thought of.”

“Umm,” the trooper said.

Lucas had to smile. “Now that, Trooper, is a professional statement if I ever heard one.”

Kyle smiled and stepped out onto the veranda. Very carefully, meticulously, he began his inspection. After only a moment, he left the veranda and returned a few moments later with an evidence bag. He knelt down and began removing something from the wall. “They didn't get it all, Lucas. People almost never do. Blood's difficult to remove.”

Lucas made coffee while the highway patrolman worked. Kyle came into the kitchen, sat down, and said, “All right, Lucas. I believe you. Not that I have now or ever had any reason to doubt you. Pour us some coffee and then take it from the top.”

“You're going to find this very hard to believe, friend.”

A very strange look came into the trooper's eyes. “Believe me when I say, Lucas, that I'm more used to strange than you are. Go ahead.”

Lucas thought that statement very odd, indeed. He'd pursue that later, tucking it back in his mind. The trooper listened intently, professionally, not interrupting. He took notes in a small pad, his handwriting surprisingly tiny and neat. As a trained lawyer, Lucas's memory was excellent, and he kept his reporting succinct.

He began with the events at the Gibson house and the strange behavior of the people living there. He ended with Kyle walking through the front door of the mansion.

When Lucas finished, Kyle drained his coffee cup, got up and poured fresh, sat back down, and said, “That, ol' buddy, is strange. I'll sure have to give you that.”

“Does that mean you don't believe me?”

“Not at all,” Kyle said quickly. He leaned back in his chair and looked at Lucas. “Lucas, I know this part of the country pretty damn well. I've been hearing stories about this old mansion—the Bowers home—all my life. Back, oh . . . 'bout fifteen or so years ago, I guess it was, a group of so-called ‘ghost hunters' came into this area. I never found out exactly what they were looking for—people told me they wouldn't come right out and say—but they concentrated their search in this general area; say a fifteen-mile circle of here. They couldn't
g
et permission to inspect this house, and I'm told that really ticked them off. But they stayed for a long time, talking to a lot of people, tape recording it when the people would let them, writing it down when they had to.” He then paused and lowered his head, staring into his coffee cup, swirling the liquid about in the cup.

When he didn't continue, Lucas asked, “Well, what was their conclusion?”

Kyle looked up. “No one knows. The house they were renting burned one night. Killed them all. Destroyed all their notes and tapes and things they'd picked up around the area. It was a very mysterious fire, so I'm told.”

“I see, I guess. You weren't here at that time?”

“No. I was in 'Nam. But to me, it's . . . well,
odd,
Lucas.”

“How do you mean, odd?”

“No one around this part of the country will talk about it. Well, that's not true. There are those who say it was God or Satan who killed the ghost hunters.”

“What?”

“Yeah.” But it was not said with the same tone of doubt that Lucas's voice held.

“You want to explain that?”

The trooper sighed. “Well, those holy rollers in town, in Palma, say God killed them for meddling in His business. Some of them say that. The others say Satan killed them because they were getting too close to . . . to uncovering a coven in this area.”

“Like in a devil's coven?”

“Yeah,” Kyle said very flatly. “You see, Lucas, there is supposed to be a very old . . . coven, if you will, located around here. Supposedly, it dates back several hundred years. I don't know about that. But it seems odd to me that just about the time the fire occurred, the folks in Palma really shifted directions in their way of worshipping.”

“Yes. I remember Jim telling me about that change. But what does that have to do with what happened here last night?”

“Maybe nothing.” Kyle sighed heavily, as though he had a great deal on his mind but was unable to unburden himself.

“I've heard those types of sighs before, Kyle. Want to tell me about it?”

“It appears to me, Lucas, you've got troubles of your own—plenty of them. Why would you want me to unload mine on you?”

“Well, for one thing, I'm a good listener. Believe me, I've had to be in my business. And you've been a good friend to me and to my family.” He poured them fresh coffee and said, “Go ahead, Kyle—unload.”

“Don't laugh, now.”

“After last night, friend, I find very little amusing about anything concerning this part of the country.”

“My wife is a psychic, Lucas.”

The trooper sat braced, his shoulders in a hunched position, as if for a blow of verbal ridicule—as if he'd heard it too many times in the past. When Lucas did not change expression, Kyle looked surprised. “Well, I'll just be damned. I thought you'd find that very amusing.”

“Not at all, Kyle. The mind is something we—you and I—and everybody else for that matter, know very little about. There are all sorts of people who possess psychic abilities, some more than others. I've personally seen demonstrations many times. It's only the very narrow-minded, ignorant types who laugh. Go on.”

Kyle nodded his agreement. “I pegged you right, Lucas. OK. Here goes. Louisa, that's my wife, has helped police and parents find missing kids, assisted in locating bodies, you name it. She stopped it several years ago. She tries, for my sake—I took a lot of flak about it—to play her . . . powers down. But,” again he sighed, “it doesn't always work out that way. And God knows it isn't her fault. Anyway, I told her about your . . . experiences in the woods behind here, the tattoo, all of it, and she wanted to come over immediately. Thinks she can help. I said no. Lucas,” again that deep sigh, “she thinks this house is . . . well, evil. She's been saying that for as long as I've known her. She's one of those the ghost-hunters interviewed. And they spoke with her several times. She's told me that. She was very young then—in her mid-teens. She knows this area; God, does she know the legends about it. All about the Woods' Children that supposedly live in your timber, and a lot about the Rejects.”

“The what?”

“I'll let her tell you about it, Lucas. Anyway, when we were dating, she used to ask me to drive her by this mansion every time we got together. Hell, I got jealous of this house. Stupid, I know.”

Lucas sat for a moment, not really or fully understanding all that the trooper had said. He said, “Your wife from this area, then?”

“ 'Bout twenty miles from here. Not a town but a small community. Gas station and a church. Her folks really suppressed her powers when she was a kid. I guess it frightened them. She was . . . well, putting it kindly, a wild kid. Never got into any law trouble; just was not happy at home. Ran away a lot. Her parents finally kicked her out. They wrote her out of the family Bible, the will, everything. Just disowned her. They refuse to speak to her to this day. Real religious nuts, I call them.”

Lucas had an idea. “You work this weekend, Kyle?”

He shook his head. “No. I took off a few days. Until next Tuesday. Why?”

“Why don't you and Lousa come to dinner Friday night. Hell, spend the weekend if you'd like. Tracy would be delighted to have someone to talk with, and we'll see what your wife can make of this . . . thing that's happened.”

Kyle's serious expression vanished. “Hey, I'd like that. And I feel sure Louisa will, too. Fine. We'll make it a weekend, then.”

“Good. All right, about last night. Do I report it?”

Kyle smiled knowingly. “I somehow get the impression you don't want to do that—right?”

“That is correct, and Tracy agrees. We have nothing that would stand up in court. All the men wore leather gloves and hoods or facemasks of some type. We were terrorized, yes, but not physically injured; except for what I did to myself doing to them. Give me some input.”

“Lucas, I think you're making a mistake. But it's up to you and Tracy. Personally, I'd report it. Two attacks in one month is no coincidence. And now they've broken into your home, smashed things up, assaulted you and your family. I'd say it's getting serious.”

“Yes, I agree with you. But, as a cop, what would you say the chances are of catching those who did it and putting them in prison?”

Kyle's smile was grim. “Slim to none, probably. But there's always a chance of catching them.”

“Kyle, there were at least fifteen people. They
could
have very easily beaten me to death. They
could
have easily raped Tracy and Jackie. They
could
have harmed Johnny. They
could
have killed us all. But they didn't. Why? I think somebody wants to frighten me off.”

“I'll play your game—why? The house?”.

“I don't know, Kyle.” Lucas leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. “No one stands to gain if I die, or leave. No one. If I were to die, the house and grounds would go to the next of kin—Tracy. If anything happens to her, it would go to the kids. If anything happened to them, there are distant cousins scattered around the nation. But the house and grounds must remain intact—that's firm. But it . . . all that happened, has to be connected in some way with the house. Kyle, Lige said a very strange thing the day we got here from the city.”

“Lige is strange any way you look at it,” the trooper said with a grunt.