Wolf Moon Rising (30 page)

a blast of cold air. Something, or someone, was there.

A drawer in the secretary had slowly opened of its own ac-

cord and a faded deck of tarot cards slid to the fl oor. Quentin

stared at the garish apparitions still spread out at his feet, and in the candlelight the images seemed animated, their gestures of

supplication and despair subtly moving as if they had come to

life. Th

ere were Queens and Aces, Cups and Coins and Re nais-

sance fi gures with knives and staff s. He was not familiar with

the tarot— that had been Magda’s province— but he did recall

that there was a death card, and Quentin was careful not to look

too closely at the fl oor for fear he would single out that harbin-

ger of doom. Still, the appearance of the cards seemed to sug-

gest Magda’s presence, and if she were there, that old harridan

could have spoken.

Th

en, after that, nothing. Th

e secret compartment closed

again, the candles were lit once more, and Blair had seemed

drained rather than apologetic. He had refused to discuss what

had transpired. Th

en something occurred that neither man

could explain. Th

rough a separation in the curtains they had

both seen— on the driveway, leaving the deserted building they

still called the stables— an old car of the Model T era, but

larger, more elegant, emerald green, with chrome headlights

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and a tan roof. At fi rst it moved slowly as if the driver was being

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Lara Parker

exceedingly cautious, but then it picked up speed and fairly

bounced over the snowy lawn, until it reached the sea road and

disappeared.

“Could that have been?” Quentin had asked.

“Yes, I think it was a twenties automobile,” said Blair. “A

Duesenberg roadster. But now it’s gone. I’m not sure if it was re-

ally there.”

Quentin watched Blair with contempt and decided he was a

charlatan in spite of the trembling table and the vintage auto-

mobile. Th

ese self- styled magicians had many tricks up their

sleeves— mirrors, projections and invisible wires.

Vexed beyond control, he left the house by the back door,

determined to speak with Jackie one more time. Perhaps she had

been thinking clearly when she claimed to know where to fi nd

the painting. He uttered a silent prayer that he would not run

into Antoinette. Th

e moon was turning, and what was he to do?

Would someone chain him down and watch over him until it

passed?

Desperation had begun to get the better of him. Looking in

the mirror that morning, he had been dismayed to see his lined

and haggard face and thinning hair. His eyes were no longer

lustrous and his noble brow and jawline were slowly sagging as

if his face were collapsing against his skull.

He quickened his step, anxious now to reach the Old House,

and he was passing the cemetery when he noticed that he was

walking on fresh tire tracks in the new snow made by some auto-

mobile. Th

en he saw, speeding down the road ahead of him, the

green car. It was bouncing along haphazardly as though the

driver were inexperienced, or drunk. Quentin started running.

He knew this car, the long rectangular carriage of shining green

enamel, the fl at cloth top, the chrome taillights. He recognized

the leather suitcase attached to the rear, and the wraparound

bumper. Where the hell had that come from?

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He ran faster, determined to catch it, but the roadster picked

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Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

up speed and was soon out of sight. Quentin stopped out of

breath and leaned over, his hands on his knees. He laughed bit-

terly. He did not have a wolf ’s resilience yet. He shook his head, bewildered, thinking there must be some explanation. He recognized the model, a 1929 Duesenberg, and it held for him po-

tent memories. It was Elizabeth’s car, and he had not seen it for

more than thirty years.

Breathing hard, Quentin turned on his heel and started

trudging back toward Collinwood. He wanted to fi nd Blair if

he were still around and schedule another séance. Damn if

something hadn’t worked after all.

When he reached the front entrance, he was surprised to see

a white van with collinsport exterminators painted on the

side panel parked up against a large snowdrift beside the kitchen

door. Th

e intrusion irritated him. Professional contractors of any

breed were rare at Collinwood since Willie handled all the re-

pairs. Th

en he remembered that Elizabeth had complained sev-

eral times to Mrs. Johnson about a pounding sound coming

from the basement. He had meant to investigate, but the séance

had grabbed his attention, and he was annoyed with himself to

have missed an opportunity to help Elizabeth with a problem.

Th

e exterminator was standing at the open back door of his

van fooling with his apparatus—

a large backpack with the

sprayer and the tank and a four- foot- long metal wand. He was

wearing what looked like a clown’s costume. He had on full

white coveralls with a hood, long green plastic gloves, and a

respirator that fi t over his face and head like a Halloween mask.

It had a black nose guard, eye goggles, and two huge red fi lters

covering his mouth, each about four inches in diameter. He re-

sembled a giant white beetle with crimson compound eyes.

Quentin walked over to investigate. “Excuse me. I’m Mr.

Collins. May I ask what you’re doing here?”

Th

e man lifted his head. “Come to solve the mystery of the

noise in your basement.” His voice coming through the round

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perforated disk was muffl

ed. “Probably a raccoon,” he said. “But

you never know. Most of the time it’s a raccoon raising a family,

trying to stay out of the cold.”

“Why do you need a sprayer for a raccoon?”

“Might as well take care of the roaches and the rats while

I’m down there.” Quentin realized the exterminator must be a

teenager rather than a grown man. He was slight of build, and

even through the fi lter his voice sounded young.

“We have a caretaker. He usually handles these things. And

I don’t think—”

“You mean Willie? Yeah, I talked to him.” Oddly, Quentin

could hear the boy breathing through the respirator, a disagree-

able wheezing sound. “He said he ain’t going down in that base-

ment. For some reason he’s really freaked out.”

“Really? Why?”

“Donno. But then snakes really frighten some people.”

“You mean you think it’s a snake?”

“I think it’s a raccoon. Or a skunk. Th

at’s what my dad says,

and he’s been in this business twenty years.” Th

e boy hoisted the

sprayer on his back and took hold of the wand. “Want to come

along?”

Quentin shook his head. “It’s all yours, buddy. But

hurry up.”

It was Ernie’s last stop of the day. By the time he got back into

town it would be dark and the guys were going out to night.

He hadn’t wanted to take the slot. He didn’t like the idea of

driving to the creepy old house with its weird family lurking

around in the dark rooms. Like that tall guy with the bushy

eyebrows. Lots of nutso stories. Th

e Collinses. Th

ey gave him

the heebie- jeebies. Th

ere was just one, that girl with the long

blond hair, Carolyn. Yeah, George said she was hot. He’d hoped

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he’d run into her so he could tell George, but she was nowhere

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about.

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He’d started working for his dad’s company on the weekends

even though exterminating wasn’t his thing. He didn’t like kill-

ing things, even mice. He hoped he wouldn’t fi nd a family. Th

ey

were so cute, the babies, with their tiny black masks and paws

like human hands. What was the matter with people, anyway?

Always afraid nature was going to come and get them. So many

billions of people on earth and so few animals left. It blew your

mind if you saw a deer in the woods like it was some kind of

miracle to see a wild animal anymore. All the wolves were gone

in Maine and Vermont. Just a few in Montana. Great beautiful

animals. Only coyotes now. Maybe a handful left. And people

wanted to kill them, too.

On second thought, even he’d like to kill that herd that fol-

lowed the witch girl around. Jackie, yeah. What a bitch. Her

and her dogs. Th

ey were probably the ones that got Petey. Noth-

ing left of him but his clothes. He’d like to catch them all

in traps just to show her.

He pulled the straps of his backpack tighter to get it up on

his shoulders— damn those tanks were heavy— and started down

the stairs into the basement. Th

en he decided to spray the base-

boards for roaches. He could charge an extra twenty bucks, and

it might do in the spiders, too. He pushed the lever and a squirt

of poison came out. God, what was this stuff ? How could any-

one live after they sniff ed this toxic crap? Good thing his dad

told him to wear the mask even though he hated the way it felt.

It was hard to breathe.

He worked his way down and took a look around the base-

ment. Paul wanted to go after that Jackie again, but he wasn’t

for it. He didn’t want anything to do with her. Th

at fl oating

thing, that was crazy. What was that all about? She hadn’t been

back to school, either, but Paul said he was waiting for her. Th

at

Ernie didn’t have to do anything except hold her down.

Jesus, look at all this shit. It looked like the stuff from

whole lives had been stored there and forgotten. Furniture, suit-

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cases, carpentry tools, maybe even something he could grab,

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like that old record player or a fi shing pole, something that he

could give George. She said there was a pounding. It could be

anywhere in all this mess.

Th

e fi rst place he looked was under the big forced air heater.

After cars, rodents liked heaters because they could build a nest

in the fi berglass insulation. Sometimes he found a whole bunch

of babies buried in the yellow stuff . Th

ey liked wires, too, ate

right though the casing and short- circuited the whole thing; they liked to nibble the plastic like it was some kind of chewing gum.

As soon as he touched the sticky web he knew there were

black widows. Shy spiders, even with that awful bite. Th

ey al-

ways danced away before you could get them. He lifted up the

apron and looked underneath. Sure enough, a couple of little

white egg sacks, and there she was, the Misses, with her long

skinny black legs and the red violin on her stomach. He gave her

a squirt and watched as she thrashed around, then curled up and

died. Funny, he felt bad. Something had been alive and now the

light had gone out. Something not doing anybody any harm,

just living its life.

He stood up and pulled the sprayer back up on his back.

Even through the mask he could smell the insecticide and it

made him feel dizzy. How many years could he do this job be-

fore he got cancer or something from breathing this stuff ?

It was a good thing a new guy was coming along to night.

He didn’t want to be alone again with Paul. He didn’t want to

do what they did again, even though his prick got hard when he

thought about it. He pointed the wand and squirted under a

couple of big trunks and around the edges of several stacks of

books. It was dark in the basement and hard to see through his

goggles.

He pulled his fl ashlight off his belt and turned it on. Th

e

beam bounced around on benches, ladders, an old table saw, a

couple of bikes, and a big butterfl y net. He could use that. Th

ere

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were shelves cluttered with cans of paint and cleaning supplies,

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boxes of nails, all kinds of shit; he didn’t even know what a lot

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Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

of it was. Everything was thick with dust, and when he squirted

it, the poison made the dust disappear.

He skimmed the walls with the light and he could tell the

stone foundation had leaks. Streaks of water and even crumbled

debris inched out between the boulders. Anything could get

in— rats, lizards, even squirrels. All they had to do was dig.

If they caught her after school he guessed he could hold one

of her ankles and Paul could hold the other one.